Smokeless tobacco cessation intervention for college athletes: Results after 1 year

Objectives. The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of a co llege-based smokeless tobacco cessation intervention targeting college athl etes. Methods. Sixteen colleges were matched for prevalence of smokeless tobacco use in their combined baseball and football teams and randomly assigned wit hin college pairs to the intervention or the control group. One-year preval ence of cessation among smokeless tobacco users was determined by self-repo rt of abstinence for the previous 30 days. Differences between groups were analyzed in a weighted version of the Fisher 1-sided permutation test for p aired samples after adjustment for significant predictors of quitting other than the intervention (i.e., smokeless tobacco uses per week and most freq uently used brand). Results. Cessation prevalences were 35% in the intervention colleges and 16 % in the control colleges when subjects with unknown quit status were defin ed as nonquitters. After adjustment for other significant predictors of qui tting, the difference of 19% increased to 21%. The intervention effect incr eased with level of smokeless tobacco use. Conclusions. This intervention was effective win promoting smokeless tobacc o cessation, especially among those who were more frequent users.