Expressed willingness of smokers to try 10 smoking withdrawal methods.

Abstract

A VARIETY of smoking withdrawal techniques have been tried in the United States and elsewhere. The ones most widely used to date are distribution of information (lectures and films), medication, nicotine substitutes, and scare communications. Group therapy, individual counseling, hypnosis, and behavior conditioning have also been employed, but to a lesser extent because they are relatively expensive and can be administered only by trained personnel after intensive planning. In smoking withdrawal clinics, persons may undergo a variety of procedures, including medication, interviews, counseling, and so forth. Interagency councils have been formed at State and local levels to plan antismoking campaigns on a larger scale (1). In San Diego and Syracuse mass smoking control programs involving the entire community are now underway (2). Innumerable physicians and dentists have urged their patients to stop smoking but have often been at a loss to tell them how, and countless books, patented gimmicks, sleep records, and the like on how to stop smoking have been marketed. Many of these programs fail because smokers are unwilling to participate in them. For example, a group of researchers in Philadelphia announced through all three daily newspapers and seven radio stations that a smoking clinic would be available to the public (3). Out of a metropolitan population of 4 million persons, only 135 responded, I11 attended a meeting, and 37 decided to participate. Of these, 24 finished the sessions offered. Other researchers have encountered similar results, although the Roswell Park Clinic, Buffalo, N.Y., has attracted 1,472 smokers over a period of 3 years (4). Furthermore, for our Smoking Control Research Project, sponsored jointly by the Institute of Social and Personal Relations, Berkeley, and the Permanente Medical Group-Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Walnut Creek, Calif., we sought to recruit about 300 smokers and had to turn away 200 surplus volunteers (5, 6). The difficulty of attracting smokers into programs such as these raises the question of which methods should be offered to those who wish to attempt giving up cigarettes. The answer should Dr. Schwartz is project director and Dr. Dubitzky is research psychologist for the Smoking Control Research Project. Dr. Schwartz is also lecturer in social welfare, University of California, Berkeley. The study is sponsored jointly by the Institute of Social and Personal Relations, Berkeley, and the Permanente Medical Group-Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Walnut Creek, Calif. Dr. Neil E. Anderson is medical director, and Dr. Frederick A. Pellegrin is consultant for the project; they represent the Permanente Medical Group on the project committee. This project is supported by Cancer Demonstration Grant No. 05-15-D67 from the Division of Chronic Diseases, Public Health Service.