Pregnant and non-pregnant women who use telephone quitline services

Audience: Quitline providers, public health professionals

Key Points:

• We analyzed characteristics, referral sources and service utilization among pregnant and non-pregnant women aged 18-44 years enrolled in American Cancer Society quitline services during 2006-2008.  We used chi-square tests to compare pregnant quitline callers to respondents classified as smokers from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) and non-pregnant callers to female respondents aged 18-44 years classified as smokers from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).
• Pregnant quitline callers were more often non-Hispanic black (quitline: 20.1%; PRAMS: 11.3%), unmarried (quitline: 76.7%; PRAMS: 67.6%), had more than 12 years of education (quitline: 33.2%; PRAMS: 24.8%), and uninsured (quitline: 15.2%; PRAMS: 4.0%) (P<.05 for all).   Non-pregnant quitline callers were more often non-Hispanic black (quitline: 21.5%; BRFSS: 11.1%), unmarried (quitline: 67.3%; BRFSS: 54.3%), had less than 12 years of education (quitline: 18.7%; BRFSS: 15.5%), and uninsured (quitline: 36.4%; BRFSS: 30.7%) (P<.05 for all)
• Fifty four percent of pregnant callers received a referral from a health care provider; 49% of non-pregnant callers heard of the quitline through mass media.
• Approximately half of quitline callers selected counseling services, the other half selected self-help materials.

Educational Experience:

• Quitlines are reaching underserved populations including non-Hispanic black, unmarried, and uninsured women.
• Health care providers are encouraged to refer pregnant and non-pregnant smokers to quitlines and to promote use of counseling services.

Benefits:

• Learning about characteristics, referral sources and service utilization among pregnant and non-pregnant female quitline callers.