Ciggyfree Blog

PORTLAND, Ore., Nov. 30 — Smoking cessation rates doubled when quit-line callers were given free nicotine patches in addition to counseling, researchers found.

Calls to a smoking cessation hotline increased 112% when, in addition to a 30-minute telephone counseling session, callers were given a two-week supply of transdermal nicotine patches, said Jeffrey Fellows, Ph.D., of the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research here, and colleagues.

Quit rates also improved from 8.2% with counseling alone to 15.7% with the patches plus counseling, they reported in a December supplement to the journal Tobacco Control.

In a separate randomized trial, more than 21% of smokers quit when they received intensive counseling plus nicotine patches, versus 11.7% among smokers who received a single brief counseling session and no patches.

Dr. Fellows noted that offering free nicotine replacement ultimately reduces the “average cost per quit.” In the first program, he said, the total one-year cost for counseling alone was $1.97 million versus $2.25 million when the patch giveaway was added. However, the addition of patches quadrupled the number of smokers who quit, so the cost per quit was $1,050 with the patch giveaway compared with $3,778 without it.