Use of Self-Help Materials and Smoking Cessation among Proactively Recruited and Volunteer Intervention Participants

Abstract

Expanding the reach of smoking cessation interventions is a necessary step in achieving the Healthy People 2000 goal to reduce adult smoking prevalence, l A call for broader dissemination of minimal self-help cessation approaches has been prompted by consistent evidence that most smokers who quit, do so on their own, and self-guided cessation interventions are preferred by most smokers/ Moreover, low intensity interventions can be provided at relatively low cost to smokers who do not self-select into formal cessation programs. Unfortunately, minimal interventions provided in an outreach format to these nonvolunteers have not resulted in uniformly higher quit rates than those observed in control groups ~ or than national secular trends. 4,5 This may be due to reportedly low rates of program use among nonvolunteers. ~5 The purpose of this study was to explore differences in demographics, smoking history, and program participation of smokers who volunteered to participate in a cessation program and smokers who were proactively recruited to a cessation intervention to better understand the low rates of program use and cessation among nonvolunteers.