Impact of Graphic Cigarette Warnings

Completed · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Smoking

In brief

The purpose of this randomized controlled trial is to determine whether graphic health warnings on cigarette packs are more effective than the existing Surgeon General's warning on cigarette packs at encouraging quit attempts. While previous experiments evaluating candidate graphic warnings have been informative, they have used psychological outcomes, such as attitudes or quit intentions, but not actual cessation behavior (e.g., quit attempts). Furthermore, they typically expose participants to warnings in controlled but artificial experimental settings for a short period of time, using much lower frequency and shorter duration of warning exposure than found in the real world. This study addresses these issues by evaluating the impact of warnings on quit attempts by randomly assigning smokers to have their cigarette packs labeled with either a graphic warning or a Surgeon General's warning for four weeks. Main hypothesis: Smokers randomized to receive graphic warnings on their cigarette packs will be more likely to report a quit attempt in the 4 weeks of the study than smokers randomized to receive a Surgeon General's label on their cigarette packs. Secondary hypothesis: Smokers randomized to receive graphic warnings on their cigarette packs will have higher quit intentions at 4 weeks than smokers randomized to receive a Surgeon General's label on their cigarette packs, controlling for baseline quit intentions.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT02247908

Run by

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

People needed

2149

Starts

2014-10-01

Expected to finish

2016-09-01

Last updated by the study team

2016-09-14

Who can join

Age: 18 and older. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

• Be 18 years or older
• Have smoked at least 100 cigarettes in his or her lifetime
• Currently smoke cigarettes
• Be able to read and speak English

You may not qualify if…

• Pregnant women
• Smokers who smoke exclusively roll-your-own cigarettes
• Smokers concurrently enrolled in another cessation study
• Smokers who smoke fewer than 7 cigarettes per week, on average
• Smokers who live in the same household as someone who has enrolled in the study

Where it is running

• Prevention Research Center of the Pacific Institute for Research & Evaluation — Oakland, California, United States
• Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation — Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 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.