Preventing relapse among former smokers: a comparison of minimal interventions through telephone and mail.
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.
Brandon
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TH
Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa 33620, USA. brandont@moffitt.usf.edu
Collins
B N
BN
Juliano
L M
LM
Lazev
A B
AB
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