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Saved by the bell: the role of telephone helpline services in the context of mass-media anti-smoking campaigns

Telephone mediated advice and counselling to assist smoking cessation efforts has become increasingly a subject of interest to tobacco control programmes, in the search to provide accessible and affordable methods of quitting smoking.1 2 Telephone contact has been used mostly among patient populations to provide proactive relapse prevention for those who have completed some kind of smoking cessation intervention or to augment health professional advice to quit smoking.1 However, the telephone can also be used as a way of providing advice and help for smokers wanting to quit smoking on their own or with minimal assistance. These so-called “helplines”, “quitlines”, or “crisis lines” tend to be reactive, in that the call is initiated by the smoker, rather than the service provider. Increasingly, helpline services are being used to provide quit smoking assistance within the context of mass media anti-smoking campaigns. In some cases, these helplines additionally offer call back services aimed at preventing relapse, after the initial contact is made by the smoker.3 

The article by Owen in this issue describes the outcomes associated with calling a helpline service that deals with around 500 000 calls each year in England.4 Similar, albeit less voluminous, services have been used in Australia,5-7Scotland,8 9 the Netherlands, and various parts of the USA.10-12 Follow up studies of callers to these types of services suggest that they are perceived as valuable by callers and associated with pleasing quit rates.3 4 7 8 Often, helpline services use a combination of live counsellors, answering bureaus, and message bank facilities, depending upon funding and the perceived importance of answering every call with a live person. In addition, calls are usually free or at minimal charge to smokers, so that the cost of the call is borne by the service provider. …