Randomized telephone smoking-intervention trial initially directed at blue-collar workers

Although smoking prevalence in the United States has declined markedly in recent years, prevalence among blue-collar workers remains high and few successful methods of reaching this group have been identified. The present study was designed to test the relative efficacy of two different approaches to telephone smoking-cessation counseling for blue-collar workers. Our study built on the experience of the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Information Service (CIS) and compared the past CIS smoking-cessation counseling procedure and a modified version of the present procedure. In our trial, callers to a special telephone hotline who asked for information on smoking cessation were randomly assigned to receive counseling under one of two protocols: 1) the past CIS procedure, in which general information was given and cessation materials were sent to the callers, and 2) a version of the present CIS stage-model procedure, adapted by us for use with blue-collar workers, in which callers were given counseling specific to their stage in the smoking-cessation process. The general-information group contained 185 subjects; the stage-model group contained 197. Despite extensive efforts in the present study, it was not possible to recruit the number of blue-collar workers planned for our statistical analysis. Consequently, of a total of 382 subjects recruited, 93 (24.3%) were blue-collar workers, 181 (47.4%) were white-collar workers, and 108 (28.3%) were retired persons who worked part time, student workers, or the unemployed. Our results show no statistically significant differences in either short-term or long-term nonsmoking rates between the general-information group and the stage-model group.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)