Quitline

Quitline is a telephone helpline offering treatment for addiction and behavior change. Presently most quitlines treat tobacco or alcohol addiction. Quitlines are treatment centres that offer advanced treatment and should not be confused with call centres.

Smoking cessation quitlines
Tobacco quitlines have proven to be comparable to cessation clinics in terms of proportion of smokers smoke free at follow-up [1-4] but are more cost effective. [5] In general quitlines have been reported to enhance 12-month abstinence rates from 7% to approximately 30%. [6-9]

The treatment protocol in most tobacco cessation quitlines is a mixture of motivational interviewing, behaviour therapy, and pharmacological consultation. Qutiline numbers are presently printed on cigarette packages in several countries as a part of the health warning labels. Tobacco quitlines may offer a reactive service, meaning that counsellors initiate no contact but patients signing up for support are encouraged to call the service whenever they needed. Or a proactive service were patients signing up for treatment are offered a call up service. Many quitlines offer both reactive and proactive treatments and leave it up to the client to chose.

Alcohol quitlines
Telephone based advice (call centres) for alcoholics and their relatives are relatively common and some are gradually developing into telephone based treatment centres. However, alcohol quitlines are still at their infancy. In Sweden where telephone-based treatment for tobacco addiction is well established, an advanced alcohol treatment quitline (first of its kind) opened in January 2007. The service is run by Stockholm Centre of Public Health that also operates the Swedish national tobacco quitline. The primary aim of the Swedish alcohol quitline is to support people who are starting to lose control over their alcohol consumption to regain control. The treatment protocol is based on motivational interviewing and cognitive behavior therapy offering support to excessive consumers of alcohol and relatives alike.