They Came, But Will They Come Back? An Observational Study of Re-Enrollment Predictors for the Oklahoma Tobacco Helpline.

Purpose: Although quitlines reach 1% to 2% of tobacco users annually, additional efforts are needed to increase their impact. We hypothesized that offering less intensive services would increase the rate of re-enrollment in any service, as well as re-enrollment in more intensive services. This study describes the enrollment patterns and identifies re-enrollment predictors for Oklahoma Tobacco Helpline (OTH) participants.

Design: This study used a comparative observational design.

Setting: The setting for this study was the OTH, a telephone-based cessation program funded by the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust. The OTH participants could select either a multicall telephone-based cessation program (MC) or one or more individual services (IS), including a 2-week nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) starter kit, e-mail or text-based support, and a printed quit guide.

Participants: A total of 35 648 first-time adult OTH participants eligible for the multicall program from October 2015 through September 2018 were included.

Measures: Demographic and tobacco use variables and initial quitline service selection were collected at intake. Additional service utilization was tracked for 6 months following initial registration.

Analysis: Pearson chi-square and tests were used to test for significant differences between groups. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine predictors of re-enrollment.

Results: Individual services were more frequently selected (n = 17 266) than MC (n = 14 326), despite all users being eligible for MC. A much higher proportion of IS registrants re-enrolled than MC registrants (16% vs 3%, < .0001) Among the IS cohort, those who received an NRT follow-up call were 14.7 times more likely to re-enroll in IS, and 7.8 times more likely to re-enroll in MC, than those who were not reached by phone.

Conclusions: Access to free NRT without a telephone-coaching requirement is a draw for tobacco users, especially those with lower income and the uninsured. The results suggest the value of increasing use of nonphone services in an effort to increase interest in quitting and reach.