Fred Hutch study: Plan helps teen smokers quit
By Herb Weisbaum
SEATTLE -- Once a child starts to smoke, it's pretty hard to stop.
But it can be done. And there's a technique that appears to work well for teenagers. The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center broke the good news Monday afternoon. The researchers there studied more than 2,000 teenage smokers in 50 high schools around the state to see if personalized private telephone counseling could help. And it did. Matt started smoking when he was 16. He's tried to quit. "I did successfully for two weeks and then something happened, and I started smoking again," he said. Today at 21, Matt's a regular smoker. He says he still wants to stop.
This is typical. Most teens want to stop smoking -- 75 percent try in any given year, but only 4 percent succeed. Breaking this addictive habit is incredibly difficult. And teens especially overestimate their ability to quit. That's why this new report from the Hutch is significant. It shows, for the first time, that with the right encouragement and support, young smokers can stop. For this study, the counseling was done over the phone. I asked study author, Arthur Peterson, why it worked. "Teens relate to telephones. It's personalized. It's private. It's confidential. And they relate to that," he said. It's also non-judgmental -- something that is critical to this age group. Nearly 22 percent who got the phone counseling quit for six months. Without counseling, only 17.7 percent quit for six months. That 4-percent difference is significant. So what's a parent to do? If you smoke, stop. That's the most powerful message you can give your child. Make it clear to them that you don't approve of them smoking. And, based on this report, try to see if they'll let you enroll them in a phone-based stop smoking program. The state's quit line at 1-800-QUIT-NOW is a good place to start. For more information: Statewide teen smoking-cessation trial is the first to achieve significant increase in prolonged quit rates |
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