The Impact of Including Incentives and Competition in a Workplace Smoking Cessation Program on Quit Rates

Abstract

Offering a multicomponent program with telephone counseling may be just as effective for long-term smoking cessation as such a program plus incentives and competition, and more effective than a traditional program.

Health promotion trials at worksites and risk factors for cancer

“…Most of the former type of trials did not offer any kind of intervention to the control group, while most studies without incentives included a minimal intervention in the control group. Only five studies compared the effectiveness of providing incentives within the same trial (13,15,18,20,29). Four found a higher smoking quit rate in the incentive group (10.4% versus 7.5%, 20% versus 16.5%, and 12.9% versus 12%) (13,18,29) or a higher abstinence smoking rate (40% versus 23%) (20).…”

“…Most (N=27) of them focused on tobacco control either exclusively (8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21) or as part of a wider health promotion program (22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34). Sixteen health promotion programs focused exclusively (35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43) or in part (23-27, 31, 34, 43) on diet.…”

“…They can be directed towards individuals, groups, or all the workforce through environmental changes (eg, changes in products of vending machines). They can be offered by the workplace physician (8,14,16,31,50), by other workers (20,24,26,27,33,39,(43)(44)(45), or by external experts (9, 11, 15, 17-19, 22, 28, 30, 32, 34, 38, 42, 45, 48, 50, 52). Apart from face-toface contact, the interventions used letters, videos, posters, and phone calls.…”

“…To achieve better results with behavioral changes, some interventions included support over time (15, 17, 19-21, 28, 31, 32, 34, 40, 50), involvement of family members (37), within and between company competitions or incentives (10,13,18,20,22,26,27,29,37,47), or participation of the occupational health services of the company in program planning and implementation (15-17, 20, 23, 24, 26-28, 31, 34, 39). …”

“…Thereafter, the treatment group received some kind of intervention. Occasionally intervention messages were adapted to the results obtained in this baseline assessment (tailored interventions, see table 1), following in some studies the stages-ofchange theory (20,26,27,29,35,46). For example, in a smoking cessation trial, workers would be classified as at the precontemplation stage if they did not intend to quit smoking in the next 6 months, as at the contemplation stage if they intended to quit smoking within the next 6 months, and at the preparatory stage if they wanted to quit smoking in the next month or if they had seriously attempted to quit smoking during the last year.…”