Physician-directed smoking cessation in a health promotion setting

Cigarette smokers contemplating quitting set proximal quit dates followed by telephone calls from a physician. Over six years of follow-up, 85 (31%) of 271 smokers were found off cigarettes at least six weeks. Twenty-eight (10.3%) long-term quitters (LTQs) averaged 27 months off. Comparison of LTQs with 49 randomly-selected non-quitters (NQs) showed no significant differences in demographics, anthropo-metrics, fitness, pulmonary function, or voluntary adjunct use. LTQs often stopped on the encounter date; NQs were more stressed.