The Adolescent Smoking Cessation Study was designed to assess the effectiveness of a telephone delivered intervention using motivational strategies to help adolescents prepare to quit or to quit smoking. There are few interventions specifically designed to assist adolescent smokers, none that have targeted an alternative school population. This presentation will describe a process evaluation by the motivational interviewers. The study used an experimental design; 98 students aged 14 to 19 from four alternative high schools in Georgia were randomly assigned to intervention and comparison conditions. The intervention group participated in three 20-minute motivational interviews over a three month period by phone, and was also encouraged to view a stage-based cessation website. Graduate students in the Department of Health Promotion and Behavior received 8 hours of training in motivational interviewing strategies, including empathic listening, establishing rapport, creating dissonance about smoking, and goal setting. The training stressed the use of non-confrontational feedback, which is especially important when working with a teenage population. The interviews were designed to assess stage of change and to elicit the subject's personal decisional balance. The content of each phone call was tailored to the person's stage of change. Adolescent students were generally responsive, and many reported quitting or making serious quit attempts. Interviewers were surprised at the extent to which the motivational strategies, emphasizing empathic listening, creating dissonance and non-judgmental responses were well received by the students. Other feedback from motivational interviewers and subjects will provide data on the feasibility of this strategy for adolescent smoking cessation.
Learning Objectives: At the end of the presentation, participants will be able to: 1) describe motivational interviewing strategies 2) define process evaluation 3) discuss the feasibility of employing motivational strategies with adolescent smoking cessation
Keywords: Smoking Cessation, Evaluation
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.