"Look at your health": outcomes associated with a computer-assisted smoking cessation counseling intervention for community college students.
Community college students represent 44% of all students enrolled in U.S. higher education facilities. To our knowledge, no previous smoking cessation intervention has targeted community college students. Previous studies suggest that a motivational smoking cessation intervention could be successful for young adult smokers. Combining motivational interviewing sessions with personalized health feedback is likely to increase participants' motivation to quit and movement through the stages of change. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of a smoking cessation program based on these premises. We designed a computer-assisted, counselor-delivered smoking cessation program that addresses personal health risks and readiness to change smoking behavior among community college students. A group-randomized, controlled trial was used to assess the intervention in a sample of 426 students (58.5% females; mean age, 22.8+/-4.7 years) from 15 pair-matched campuses. At the 10-month follow-up assessment, the cotinine-validated smoking cessation rates were 16.6% in the experimental condition and 10.1% in the standard care condition (p=0.07). Our results indicate that our computer-assisted intervention holds considerable promise in reducing smoking among community college students.
Prokhorov
Alexander V
AV
Department of Behavioral Science, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77230, United States. aprokhor@mdanderson.org
Yost
Tracey
T
Mullin-Jones
Mary
M
de Moor
Carl
C
Ford
Kentya H
KH
Marani
Salma
S
Kilfoy
Briseis A
BA
Hein
Joshua P
JP
Hudmon
Karen Suchanek
KS
Emmons
Karen M
KM
D000328:Adult; D001521:Behavior Therapy / Q000379:methods; D003376:Counseling / Q000193:education / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000379:methods* / Q000523:psychology; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D016896:Treatment Outcome