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Evidence summaries

Quit and Win Contests for Smoking Cessation

Quit and win contests may help some smokers to quit compared to control group, but they have little effect on community smoking rates. Level of evidence: "C"

A Cochrane review [Abstract] 1 included 5 studies. Three demonstrated significantly higher quit rates (8% to 20%) for the quit and win group than for the control group at the 12-month assessment. However, the population impact measure, where available, suggests that the effect of contests on community prevalence of smoking is small, with fewer than one in 500 smokers quitting because of the contest. Levels of deception, where they could be quantified, were high. Although surveys suggest that international quit and win contests may be effective, especially in developing countries, the lack of controlled studies precludes any firm conclusions from this review.

    References

    • Hey K, Perera R. Quit and Win contests for smoking cessation. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2005 Apr 18;(2):CD004986 [Assessed as up-to-date: 29 January 2008]. [PubMed]

Primary/Secondary Keywords