Medical Works' """"""""Buddies Online"""""""" is timely and unique. Cessation programs have had difficulty in recruiting young people, maintaining attendance, and have had high relapse rates among the few quitters. The 1994 Surgeon General's report pointed to the need for research on teenage smoking cessation and for new approaches to resolve this problem. Through the utilization of an interactive game format, credible peer role models, and creative images/messages, the game should move adolescent smokers along the continuum of quitting. This proposed Phase I research will involve the development and evaluation of the viability for an internet-based multiplayer smoking cessation game. The Smoking Cessation Internet Game, """"""""Buddies Online,"""""""" is a spin-off from MedicalWorks' Mind & Mayhem Games. The internet multiplayer game, based on multimedia software and computer animation, will be designed specifically for the special downloading capabilities of the internet. It will be used to facilitate smoking cessation in young people between the ages of 13 to 17. During Phase II, the Smoking Cessation Internet Multiplayer Game will be completed and evaluated. The efficacy experimental will be a 2x2 factorial with the following conditions: ALA + Game, ALA alone, standard health education alone and game alone. This 2x2 design will allow testing of the incremental effects of the game, both in the context of an established group cessation program and in the context of """"""""usual care.""""""""
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