DOES TAILORING MATTER - THE IMPACT OF A TAILORED GUIDE ON RATINGS ANDSHORT-TERM SMOKING-RELATED OUTCOMES FOR OLDER SMOKERS

There is new evidence that smokers of all ages benefit from cessation of smoking. Although most older smokers, like younger smokers, prefer to quit on their own, at the time this project was started, there were no materials or programs targeted to older smokers. Using the literat ure, focus groups with older smokers and a national survey of older sm okers, we created Clear Horizons, a self-help guide for older smokers, and a telephone counseling protocol tailored to the needs of older sm okers (age 50-74). Smokers were recruited from around the United State s and assigned randomly to a control guide, Clearing the Air, Clear Ho rizons alone or Clear Horizons and two counselor calls. Follow-up of n early 2000 smokers was conducted by telephone 3, 6, 12 and 24 months a fter delivery of the self-help guides. This report focuses primarily o n results at 3 months because that was the measurement for reactions t o the interventions. At the 3 month interview, those in the tailored i nterventions rated their guides more highly than did those in the cont rol group. They also read more of their guides and were more likely to reread them. Quit rates were significantly higher among smokers who r eceived a combination of the tailored guide and telephone counseling. At 3 months, the combination of the guide and telephone counseling was most effective in helping smokers to quit. By 12 months, both the tai lored guide alone and the tailored guide and calls groups had higher q uit rates than the control guide but were not statistically different from one another.