Capsule Commentary on Rigotti et al., Interactive Voice Response Calls to Promote Smoking Cessation after Hospital Discharge: Pooled Analysis of Two Randomized Clinical Trials

Excerpt

Hospitalization provides a timely, convenient opportunity to help smokers quit. This article is the latest in a series by Rigotti from the Massachusetts General Hospital, testing whether human or automated (interactive voice response; IVR) phone calls post-discharge can increase the chances of quitting.1 The answer is yes. In this report, the biochemically confirmed 6-month abstinence rate was 19%, though the cutoff points of <10 ng/ml of cotinine or <9 ppm of CO might falsely label a few light smokers as abstinent. Although 19% might seem low, it far surpasses the unassisted rate of 4%.2 As the authors note, it is hard to disentangle the effect of the calls themselves from the provision of free smoking cessation therapy, but it was clear that more phone calls translated into higher quitting odds. …