Journal of Addiction Research & Therapy
Open Access

Abstract

D aily smoking is associated with elevated blood pressure, carbon monoxide (CO) toxicity, and impaired pulmonary lung functioning. Benefits of smoking cessation are readily apparent. Previous literature indicates that providing personalized information to smokers without engaging in confrontational pressure to quit smoking, leads to increased interest in quitting smoking and willingness to enter smoking cessation programs. The goal of this ongoing study is to motivate smokers to enter a smoking cessation program, once they have received personally tailored health information related to smoking. Participants are recruited through fliers on campus and advertisements on their paystubs for a paid study entitled Health Screening for Smokers . They are randomly assigned to the active treatment condition (personalized information regarding their blood pressure, carbon monoxide (CO) level, and pulmonary lung functioning), or the control group (health screening with no feedback). All participants are offered smoking cessation free of charge at the campus clinic. Progression in Stage of Change (SOC) for smoking cessation, and cigarettes smoked per day (CPD) are the outcome measures. Participants thus far (N = 17), [active treatment ( n = 8), control ( n = 9)] did not differ by condition at baseline in age ( m = 23.0 years), gender (59% male), race (88.2% Caucasian), CPD ( m = 20.08), CO ( m = 19.1 ppm), years smoking ( m = 6.6), number of quit attempts ( m = 1.2), Fagerstrm Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND; m = 4.7), SOC (47% Precontemplation; 35.3% Contemplation). Implications for adapting this brief intervention to a primary care setting will be discussed.

Biography

Amy L. Copeland completed her Ph.D. in 1997 at State University of New York, Binghamton. She subsequently completed her predoctoral internship and a postdoctoral fellowship at University of California, San Francisco. She started at Louisiana State University (LSU) in 1998 and is now a tenured Associate Professor of Psychology and serves as Director of the LSU Psychological Services Center. She has published over 50 papers in peer- reviewed journals and book chapters, focusing on cognitive and affective variables in the clinical course of substance use disorders