Contingency management for smoking cessation among treatment-seeking patients in a community setting.
BACKGROUND
Contingency management (CM) is an efficacious intervention for reducing cigarette smoking. However, CM is rarely adopted as a smoking cessation treatment in the community. This study analyzed the effectiveness of a CM procedure in combination with a cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) for smoking cessation among treatment-seeking patients from the general population.


METHODS
A total of 92 patients were randomly assigned to one of two treatment conditions: CBT (N=49) or CBT+CM (N=43). The CM procedure included a voucher program through which nicotine abstinence was reinforced on a schedule of escalating magnitude of reinforcement with a reset contingency. Self-reported smoking status was confirmed with both carbon monoxide (CO) level in expired air and cotinine levels in urine.


RESULTS
Of the patients who received CBT+CM 97.7%, completed 6 weeks of treatment, versus 81.6% of those who received CBT (p=.03). At the post-treatment assessment, 95.3% of the patients assigned to the CBT+CM condition achieved abstinence in comparison to the 59.2% in the CBT group (p=.000). At the one-month follow-up, 72.1% of the patients who received CBT+CM maintained smoking abstinence, versus 34.7% in the CBT group (p=.001). At the six-month follow-up, 51.2% of the patients who received CBT+CM maintained smoking abstinence in comparison to the 28.6% in the CBT group (p=.04).


CONCLUSIONS
Results from this randomized clinical trial showed that adding CM to a CBT is effective, and is feasible as an intervention approach with treatment-seeking patients in a community setting.
Department of Psychology, University of Oviedo, Plaza Feijoo, s/n, 33003 Oviedo, Spain. Electronic address: secades@uniovi.es.
Roberto
R
Secades-Villa
Department of Psychology, University of Oviedo, Plaza Feijoo, s/n, 33003 Oviedo, Spain.
Olaya
O
García-Rodríguez
Department of Psychology, University of Oviedo, Plaza Feijoo, s/n, 33003 Oviedo, Spain.
Carla
C
López-Núñez
Department of Psychology, University of Oviedo, Plaza Feijoo, s/n, 33003 Oviedo, Spain.
Fernando
F
Alonso-Pérez
Department of Psychology, University of Oviedo, Plaza Feijoo, s/n, 33003 Oviedo, Spain.
José R
JR
Fernández-Hermida
D000328:Adult; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy / Q000379:methods; D003153:Community Health Services; D003367:Cotinine / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D010352:Patient Dropouts; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000379:methods*; D016896:Treatment Outcome
D003367:Cotinine
Cognitive-behavioral treatment; Community setting; Contingency management; Nicotine dependence; Smoking