title: Why are financial incentives not effective at influencing some smokers to quit? Results of a process evaluation of a worksite trial assessing the efficacy of financial incentives for smoking cessation.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Process evaluation of a worksite intervention in which employees were offered $750 to complete a cessation program and to quit smoking.
  
  
  METHODS
  Awareness and attitudes about financial incentives were assessed following a randomized controlled trial of 878 smokers at a US-based company.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Cessation program attendance was higher in incentive group versus control (20.2% vs 7.1%, P < 0.01). Most quitters (69.8%) in the incentive group who were already motivated to quit and reported that they would have quit for less money, said incentives were "not at all" or only "somewhat" important. Most nonquitters in the incentive group reported that even $1500 would not have motivated them to quit.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Financial incentives are ineffective at motivating some smokers to quit. Internal motivation and readiness to quit need to be sufficiently high for relatively modest incentives to be effective.
authors.affiliation: Public Health Policy Research Program, RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA. akim@rti.org
authors.forename: Annice
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Kian
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kamyab
authors.forename: Jingsan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Volpp
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D006801:Humans; D009042:Motivation; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000191:economics* / Q000523:psychology; D017132:Workplace / Q000191:economics