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"Quit smoking, kid!"

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Researchers, who studied 1000 teens who said they wanted to quit smoking, wrote in the journal Paediatrics that close to 11% of those who got counselling for 3 months had quit smoking, compared to 6% of those who only received educational pamphlets.

Is it really effective?


But a year after the sessions, there was no difference in smoking rates based on what kind of assistance teens had gotten from their nurses.

"It's nice that there was some effect at 3 months, what we really care about is sustained cessation," said Michael Siegel, who studies tobacco control at the Boston University School of Public health but wasn't involved in the study.

The method

In the 35 Massachusetts schools covered in the study, half the nurses were trained to give their students one-on-one counselling based around goal setting and problem solving, including making a plan to quit and then preventing relapses.

The other nurses gave students information pamphlets on quitting smoking and volunteered to answer any questions they had about the process. Both groups of nurses saw their students at four weekly sessions, ranging from 10 to 30 minutes.

The counselling intervention appeared to especially help boys in the short run. Those who had made goals and tracked progress with the nurses were 3 times more likely to say they had stopped smoking than boys in the "control" group.

Other smoking cessation experts noted that relapsing into smoking is the biggest hurdle at any age, and that teens were especially likely to do so. But they added that the more options teens had for help, the better.

How would you get your teen to stop smoking?

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