Systematic review on telephonic Quitline and its effects on smokeless tobacco

Tobacco consumption accounts for approximately 80% of total death in low and middle income countries. According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (2015) the prevalence of smokeless tobacco (SLT) consumption is being highest in India for about 33% in men and 18% in female. Countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia have highest prevalence of women SLT consumers than males. Quitting of tobacco products is although a difficult process. Evidence suggests two methods that enable a person to quit smokeless tobacco are pharmacotherapy and counselling or advice. The telephonic quit line services is very popular in the US and Europe, however they have predominantly handled smoking cessation. In this study we have done the systematic review on effect of telephone quit line services over smokeless tobacco cessation. We have taken articles from well-known library Pub-Med and Google Scholar with proper inclusion and exclusion criteria. In the systematic review it was noted that use of telephone quit line has reported the quit rate of SLT in the range of 25 to 30% over the population of 1000 despite of many limitations. The smokeless tobacco cessation through telephone quit line is useful and convenient way for tobacco control. The government of India has looked forward into this issue and has recently launched the national telephone quit line services for the tobacco control. This review recommends a policy which has to be made by the Low and Middle income countries to establish the quit line services for the SLT cessation by telephone counselling, which will play important role in tobacco control.