• Catherine Bolman, Hein de Vries, and Gerard van Breukelen.
• Department of Social Sciences, Netherlands Open University, Heerlen, The Netherlands. catherine.bolman@ou.nl
• Prev Med. 2002 Aug 1; 35 (2): 181192181-92.

BackgroundThis study examined the 1-year effects of a minimal-contact smoking cessation intervention for cardiac inpatients.MethodsThe multicenter study included cardiac inpatients who had smoked prior to hospitalization. A pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was used. Patients' experimental condition depended on the hospital they were assigned to. The design was partially randomized: 4 of the 11 hospitals selected the experimental condition themselves (2 experimental, 2 control), while the remaining 7 hospitals were randomly assigned. The experimental group consisted of patients of 5 hospitals (N = 388). Patients of 6 other hospitals served as the control group (N = 401). The intervention included stop-smoking advice by the cardiologist, brief counseling by the nurse, the provision of self-help materials, and aftercare by the cardiologist.ResultsLogistic regression analyses controlling for baseline differences and covariates did not show significant intervention effects on point prevalence and continuous abstinence. The study also showed that the outcomes were not significantly related to the way hospitals were assigned to the experimental condition.ConclusionsWhile short-term effects were found, the minimal-contact intervention did not result in significant effects after 12 months, at least if patients lost to follow-up were treated as posttest smokers. Efforts should be made to improve the intervention, especially the aftercare.

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