A comparison of four self-report smoking cessation outcome measures

Interventions for smoking cessation have been developed by researchers in a number of distinct disciplines. As a result, a variety of different outcome measures have been developed and employed. This paper will report an analysis that compares four smoking cessation outcome measures on data gathered from three population-based studies: (1) 24-hour point prevalence abstinence, (2) 7-day point prevalence abstinence, (3) 30-day prolonged abstinence, and (4) 6-month prolonged abstinence. The three studies provided a total of 41 mean estimates for the first three measures but only 28 mean estimates for the 6-month prolonged abstinence measure. The data demonstrate an extremely high relationship between all four measures. The first three measures (24-hour point prevalence, 7-day point prevalence, and 30-day prolonged abstinence) all correlated in excess of.98 with each other. The only measure that did not demonstrate the same degree of almost perfect equivalence was 6-month prolonged abstinence, but even here the lowest correlation with the other three measures was.82. For practical purposes, the first three measures will result in the same conclusions when used as outcome measures in smoking cessation studies.