Measuring adolescent smoking cessation motives and methods

Institution:	Veterans Medical Research Foundation
Investigator(s):	Mark Myers, Ph.D.
Award Cycle:	2001 (Cycle 10)	Grant #: 10IT-0280	Award: $103,273
Subject Area:	Epidemiology
Award Type:	Inno Dev & Exp Awards (IDEAS)

Abstracts

Initial Award Abstract

Significant increases in youth smoking rates were observed in the 1990's. This issue is of concern given the substantial persistence of adolescent smoking into adulthood and the attendant smoking-related health consequences. Although much attention has been directed toward adolescent smoking cessation in recent years, little is understood regarding why and how adolescents attempt to stop smoking. A substantial proportion of adolescent smokers try to cut down or quit smoking on their own each year. As such, information about motives and methods for adolescent smoking cessation may be particularly valuable for developing interventions to assist adolescents in these efforts. At this time there are few, if any tested methods available for assessing adolescent smoking cessation motives and methods. Thus, the proposed study is designed to develop questionnaires that provide detailed information on these topics. The first part of the study involves conducting focus groups with high school students to develop content and format of a questionnaire to assess how teens go about trying to quit smoking and what motivates these efforts. The second part of the study involves interviewing adolescents at two time points. This part of the study will provide information regarding the utility and quality of the newly developed questionnaire of adolescent smoking cessation methods and motives. In addition, this portion of the study will permit preliminary evaluation of factors that predict which teens are most likely to attempt to quit smoking. This study is intended to provide the foundation for subsequent studies of the natural history of adolescent smoking cessation.

Publications

Adolescent motives for quitting smoking.
Periodical: Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco Conference			Index Medicus:
Authors: Myers MG, MacPherson L				ABS
Yr: 2004	Vol:	Nbr:	Abs:	Pg:

Adolescent motives for quitting smoking.
Periodical: Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco Conference			Index Medicus:
Authors: Myers MG, MacPherson L				ABS
Yr: 2004	Vol:	Nbr:	Abs:	Pg: