A Controlled Trial of a Quit and Win Contest

Abstract

Purpose. To evaluate the impact of a state-of-the-art Quit and Win contest on tobacco quit rates at 3, 6, and 12 months after the 30-day quit period. Design. Quasi-experimental with a volunteer sample of 494 Quit and Win contest registrants (treatment group) and 512 randomly selected tobacco users not exposed to the promotional media campaign (control group). Intervention included a 30-day quit period to be eligible for large cash prizes; provider advice via weekly mailings; online and telephone quit assistance; media campaign; and community support. Setting. Community-based intervention in Kentucky. Subjects. A total of 1006 adult tobacco users. Measures. Quit rates were measured using 7-day point prevalence for tobacco use. Urine cotinine measurements confirmed self-reported quitting. Results. Treatment group participants were significantly more likely than controls to experience quitting during the 1-year follow-up, as determined by both self-report and urine confirmation. After adjusting for baseline differences in demographics, tobacco use, and stage of change, those in the treatment group had 2.6 times the odds of reporting quitting in the postintervention period and 5.3 times the odds of experiencing quitting confirmed by urine cotinine, relative to controls. Women, minorities, and low-income tobacco users had equal odds of quitting as men, whites, and those with higher incomes. Conclusions. That the contest was minimally intensive and yielded a relatively high quit rate demonstrates the potential effectiveness of the intervention.