Characteristics of participants who stop smoking and sustain abstinence for 1 and 5 years in the Lung Health Study.
BACKGROUND
This study describes baseline and Year 1 predictors of abstinence from smoking for the 3,523 intervention participants who had complete annual 5-year follow-up data in the Lung Health Study (LHS).


METHODS
The LHS enrolled 5,887 smokers, aged 35 to 60 years, of whom 3,923 were offered a cessation intervention. Of these, 22% achieved biochemically verified abstinence for 5 years. Logistic regressions were performed. The first outcome variable was abstinence from smoking at 1 year. Then for those who were quit at 1 year, the outcome variable was 5 years of sustained abstinence.


RESULTS
All participants who were not using nicotine gum after 1 year in the study were more likely to sustain cessation over 5 years than were gum users at year 1 (OR ranged from 0.31 to 0.44 for four age- and sex-specific groups). Baseline number of previous quit attempts was negatively associated with 5-year quitting success among younger and older men (OR = 0.82 and 0.83). Older participants who were less likely to associate smoking with emotional coping had higher abstinence rates at 5 years of follow-up (OR = 0.89 and 0.84).


CONCLUSIONS
Different mechanisms may be responsible for achieving cessation in age/gender groups. These results have implications for planning successful interventions.
Murray
R P
RP
Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. rmurray@hsc.mb.ca
Gerald
L B
LB
Lindgren
P G
PG
Connett
J E
JE
Rand
C S
CS
Anthonisen
N R
NR
D000328:Adult; D003625:Data Collection; D005260:Female; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008173:Lung Diseases, Obstructive / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008350:Manitoba / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data