Not Quite Ready to Quit

Completed · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Smoking Cessation

In brief

In our communications with the public, the investigators will call this the Not Quite Ready to Quit Smoking Study. One new method to increase quit attempts is to have smokers reduce their cigs/day. The investigators and others have shown that reduction aided by nicotine medications can increase quit attempts and later abstinence among smokers not ready to quit. Because half of smokers are reluctant to use nicotine medications for a non-cessation reason, the investigators now propose to test whether reduction not aided by nicotine medications can be effective. Another new method to increase quit attempts is motivational counseling. The investigators previously found implementation of the brief United States Public Health Service (USPHS) Guidelines 5 Rs motivational intervention via three 15 min phone calls can provide a large increase in quitting (OR = 6.3); however, the investigators need to replicate that result. A vendor will proactively email adult, daily smokers listed in a consumer panel to recruit 560 smokers who do not plan to quit in the next month and randomize them to a) reduction counseling without the aid of nicotine medications , b) brief counseling guided by the USPHS 5 R's, or c) usual care. The first two conditions will be delivered via brief counseling calls at study onset and then 2 and 4 weeks later (total = 35 min). The usual care condition will consist of a brief (\< 5 min) phone intervention followed by a quit guide. Our major hypothesis is that the incidence of quit attempts over the 6 months of the study will be greater in both the reduction and the motivational conditions than in the usual care condition. A secondary hypothesis is that the increase in quit attempts will lead to increased abstinence. Another secondary hypothesis is that beneficial effects of both treatments will be mediated by increases in self-efficacy and intentions to quit. A final hypothesis is that decreases in cigs/day and nicotine dependence will mediate the efficacy of the reduction treatment but not the motivational treatment and, conversely, that a shift in decisional balance will mediate the efficacy of the motivational treatment but not of the reduction treatment.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT01866722

Run by

University of Vermont

People needed

560

Starts

2013-09-01

Expected to finish

2015-07-14

Last updated by the study team

2017-07-31

Who can join

Age: 18 and older. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

You may qualify if…

• > 18 years old
• smoke > 10 cigs/day seven days/week,
• wants to stop at some point but have no plans to quit in the next month
• is able to read and write English
• is a US citizen or a permanent resident alien
• available for counseling calls before 20:00 Eastern Time

You may not qualify if…

• has reduced cigs/day by > 25% in the last month
• has used non-cigarette tobacco in the last month
• has used electronic cigarettes, nicotine replacement medications, varenicline or bupropion in the last month

Where it is running

• University of Vermont — Burlington, Vermont, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

Trial information comes from ClinicalTrials.gov and is refreshed daily. TrialsForMe does not provide medical care and does not run the studies it lists.