title: Preventing relapse among former smokers: a comparison of minimal interventions through telephone and mail.
abstract: This study compared 2 minimal interventions for reducing relapse in ex-smokers. One intervention involved 12-month access to a telephone hot line. In the other intervention, 8 relapse-prevention booklets were mailed to participants over 1 year. The 2 interventions were crossed in a 2 x 2 factorial design, yielding control, hot-line-only, mailings-only, and combined conditions. The criterion of at least 1 week of abstinence at baseline was met by 584 participants, 446 of whom also completed a 12-month assessment. Repeated mailings, but not the hot line, reduced relapse for those participants who had been abstinent for less than 3 months at baseline. At follow-up, 12% of those in the mailings conditions were smoking again compared with 35% in the nonmailing conditions. As predicted, both interventions were effective at attenuating the association between depressive symptoms and poor outcome found in the control condition.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa 33620, USA. brandont@moffitt.usf.edu
authors.forename: T H
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Brandon
authors.forename: B N
authors.initials: BN
authors.lastname: Collins
authors.forename: L M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Juliano
authors.forename: A B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Lazev
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D015277:Hotlines; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D010174:Pamphlets; D012008:Recurrence; D012055:Reinforcement Schedule; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000379:methods*; D016896:Treatment Outcome