Smoking cessation: Long-term irrelevance of mode of treatment

Control of Cigarette Smoking from a Psychological Perspective

“…Investigators using a minimal treatment or attention-placebo control group have demon strated that the control groups produce smoking cessation results beyond those which no intervention would be expected to produce (30)(31)(32). Those outcomes have been partially accounted for by certain "nonspecifi c factors" common to all treatment settings and cannot be attributed to a specifi c intervention technique.…”

Effectiveness of professional and paraprofessional helpers: A comment on Durlak.

“…Differences between professionals and paraprofessionals appear negligible in the Truax and Lister (1970) and Knickerbocker and McGee (1973) studies. Differences favoring professionals (Levenberg & Wagner, 1976;Wolff, 1969) and paraprofessionals (Brown & Myers, 1975;Murray, 1972) were not identified by Durlak. Four studies (Covner, 1969;Knickerbocker & McGee, 1973;Lamb & Clack, 1974;Poser, 1966) did not assess a meaningful clinical outcome.…”

“…1963; Mosher et al, 1975;Penick et al, 1971;Sheldon, 1964;Werry & Cohrssen, 1965). Eight studies contrasted only one professional and paraprofessional, thereby confounding professional status with the personal-social characteristics of individual therapists (Anker & Walsh, 1961;Elliott & Denney, 1975;Fremouw & Harmatz, 1975;Levenberg & Wagner, 1976;Lick & Heffler, 1977;Lindstrom, Balch, & Reese, 1976;Moleski & Tosi, 1976;Ryan, Krall, & Hodges, 1976). Different amounts or durations of treatment were provided by professionals and by paraprofessionals in 3 studies (Jensen, 1961;Mosher et al, 1975;Sheldon, 1964).…”

Implementing Preventive and Environmental Community Interventions

“…Much attention has been directed toward evaluating behavioral techniques aimed at eliminating and reducing this maladaptive habit. Unfortunately, short-term treatment effects have often been followed by considerable erosion of gains (Levenberg and Wagner, 1976). Conceivably, directing intervention programs toward children might be more effective in combating this health problem.…”