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Stopping smoking: carpe diem?

¹ University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, USA
² Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, USA

Correspondence to:
John R Hughes
MD, University of Vermont, Departments of Psychiatry, Psychology & Family Practice, Ira Allen School, 38 Fletcher Place, Burlington, VT 05401-1419, USA; john.hughes@uvm.edu

Keywords: smoking cessation

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A study published in Tobacco Control¹ reported 52% of attempts to stop smoking were unplanned and that unplanned quit attempts were more successful than planned attempts. This latter finding contradicts the traditional wisdom that many smokers fail because they do not plan adequately for their quit attempts.² Importantly, these two results have been replicated in a second study.³ The Tobacco Control study concluded "don’t plan dates; look for quit opportunities" and that planning quit dates "may be hindering, rather than assisting successful smoking cessation". In contrast, the second study concluded their findings "do not necessarily imply that planning quit attempts is counterproductive".

We believe that whether it is better to have smokers act immediately on impulses to stop smoking or to have them set a later quit date and spend time formulating a clear plan for quitting is unclear. Both of the above studies recognised that their association of impulsive . . . [Full text of this article]