Tailored media can enhance the success of smoking cessation clinics

Smokers recruited through the medical outpatient clinics of two similar Veterans Hospitals over two successive years participated in a smoking cessation study which randomized them between a group assigned to behavior modification clinics and a group receiving a packet of smoking cessation material in the mail. Following the second year's clinics at the site of one of the two hospitals, an intensive media campaign, based on the content of the behavior modification program, was targeted at the study population over commercial television and radio. The six-month abstinence rate for clinic participants measured by self-report, serum thiocyanate and exhaled air carbon monoxide was 36.8% in the group assigned to clinic followed by media, 20.2% in the group assigned to clinic alone, and 10.6% in the group receiving materials in the mail. The difference in cessation rates between the clinic participants who were and those who were not exposed to the media following their clinics was significant at the 0.05 significance level (chi 2 = 3.9, 1 d.f.). Logistic analysis confirmed the benefit of the media campaign.