Document Type

Article

Disciplines

Medicine and Health Sciences

Abstract

Abstract

Background

Adjunctive behavioral smoking cessation treatments have the potential to improve outcomes beyond standard care. The present study had two aims: 1) compare standard care (SC) for smoking (four weeks of brief counseling and monitoring) to SC plus prize-based contingency management (CM), involving the chance to earn prizes on days with demonstrated smoking abstinence (carbon monoxide (CO) ≤6ppm); and 2) compare the relative efficacy of two prize reinforcement schedules - one a traditional CM schedule, and the second an early enhanced CM schedule providing greater reinforcement magnitude in the initial week of treatment but equal overall reinforcement.

Methods

Participants (N = 81 nicotine-dependent cigarette smokers) were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions.

Results

Prize CM resulted in significant reductions in cigarette smoking relative to SC. These reductions were not apparent at follow-up. We found no meaningful differences between the traditional and enhanced CM conditions.

Conclusions

Our findings reveal that prize CM leads to significant reductions in smoking during treatment relative to a control intervention, but the benefits did not extend long-term.

Comments

Drug Alcohol Depend. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2016 Sep 13. Published in final edited form as: Drug Alcohol Depend. 2014 Jul 1; 140: 208–212. Published online 2014 Apr 13. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2014.03.032 PMCID: PMC5020416 NIHMSID: NIHMS814599

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