title: Methodological issues in measuring treatment outcome in adolescent smoking cessation studies.
abstract: As the prevalence of adolescent smoking and, notably, regular smoking has increased over the last decade, researchers and practitioners have called for a consideration of treatment programs to promote cessation among adolescents who smoke. The adolescent smoking cessation treatment field is still in its infancy, though. The literature addressing adolescent cessation is rather limited to date, often plagued by methodological problems and characterized by little success. Many basic methodological questions remain for researchers to address before we will be able to answer questions such as which treatment approaches work best for which adolescent smokers. The purpose of this paper is to review briefly what is known about adolescent smoking cessation, to identify some important methodological issues to consider in treatment outcome studies, and to make recommendations to researchers to help provide a common ground for future comparisons of results across studies. We will address the natural history of adolescent smoking cessation, treatment outcomes, validity of self-reports and biochemical validation, and research recommendations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Health Research and Policy Centers, University of Illinois at Chicago, 60607, USA. robinm@uic.edu
authors.forename: Robin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mermelstein
authors.forename: Suzanne M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Colby
authors.forename: Christi
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Patten
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Prokhorov
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Myers
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Adelman
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hudmon
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: McDonald
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000379:methods*; D000074606:Smoking Prevention; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014029:Tobacco Use Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D016896:Treatment Outcome