JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Smoking is still the leading cause of preventable death. Governments and healthcare providers should make available more accessible resources to help tobacco users stop. This study describes a pilot longitudinal study that evaluated the efficacy of a computerized intervention compared to the brief intervention for smoking cessation among Brazilians. Forty-nine smokers were enrolled in this study (25 in the brief intervention group; 24 in the internet-based intervention group). The mean age was 44.46 years old; most were male (59.2%), had elementary school (44.9%), smoked an average of 14.5 cigarettes per day, and had a mean score of 4.65 for nicotine dependence, and a score of 5.7 for motivation to quit. Measures were drawn by comparing cessation rate, motivation score, and sought treatment between groups. Thirty-five participants answered follow-up 1, and 19 answered to follow-up 2. The results showed similar rates of cessation and reduction for both intervention groups. The internet-based intervention was a little more effective for smoking cessation, while the brief intervention was more effective in reducing the number of cigarettes smoked per day. Despite this, this difference was small and had no statistical significance even after adjusting for intention-to-treat analysis. These results should be interpreted with caution, especially due to the small sample size.