Cigarette reduction: An intervention for adolescent smokers

Karen Hanson, Emily Zylla, Sharon Allen, Zhongze Li, Dorothy K. Hatsukami

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

This observational study examined whether adolescents who were not interested in quitting could reduce cigarette smoking and if cigarette reduction led to a corresponding and significant reduction in biomarkers of exposure. The study design was a randomized, open-label trial of nicotine patch and nicotine gum with an added placebo control. Participants (n = 103) attended 4 treatment visits over 4 weeks and follow-up visits at 3- and 6-months. Participants were told to reduce their smoking by 25% of baseline smoking during the 1st week and by 50% of baseline smoking during the subsequent 3 weeks. Of consented participants, 91.3% (n = 94/103) completed the study until the end-of-treatment, 85.1% (n = 80/94) completed the 3-month follow-up visit and 71.3% (n = 67/94) completed the 6-month follow-up visit. Participants had a very high prevalence of co-morbidity. With regard to the percentage of participants who achieved a 50% reduction of baseline smoking, there were no significant differences among treatment groups (p = .89). At the end-of-treatment, 49.4% of participants (n = 41) had reduced smoking by at least 50%. Additionally, there was no significant group, visit or interaction effect of a biomarker measure for carcinogen exposure (p > .05). The results suggest that reduction may be a potential aid to engage adolescents who are unable or unwilling to quit, but should not be an end goal. The effect of treatment methods on outcome measures did not differ significantly.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)164-168
Number of pages5
JournalDrug and alcohol dependence
Volume95
Issue number1-2
DOIs
StatePublished - May 1 2008

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Role of funding source : Funding for this project was provided by NIH Grants: R01-DA014538 and P50 DA013333. The funding sources did not contribute to developing or conducting the study including the following activities: study design, data collection or analysis, manuscript preparation or the submission of the manuscript for publication.

Keywords

  • Adolescent
  • Biomarkers
  • Cigarette reduction
  • Nicotine gum
  • Nicotine patch
  • Smoking cessation

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