Perhaps one of the reasons why smoking continues despite the well- documented benefits of quitting is the persuasive messages encouraging smoking cessation tend to focus on the costs of smoking rather than on the benefits of not smoking. These messages are usually designed to elicit feelings of threat or fear by presenting the negative consequences of smoking. On the other hand, messages emphasizing the benefits of smoking cessation may be more motivating for cessation. In general, appeals aimed at persuading individuals to perform a particular health behavior can be framed in different ways. Gain-framed messages present the benefits that are accrued through adopting the behavior (e.g., """"""""If you stop smoking you will find you have more energy""""""""). Loss framed messages covey the costs of not adopting the requested behavior (e.g., """"""""If you do not stop smoking, you will find that you are often out of breath""""""""). Although these two messages convey essentially the same information about smoking cessation, in certain circumstances, one of these messages may be more influential. Across a wide range of studies of health behaviors, gained-framed messages appear to be more appropriate when encouraging a prevention behavior (i.e. smoking cessation), but loss- framed messages appear to be more appropriate when encouraging a prevention behavior (i.e. smoking cessation), but loss-framed messages appear to more appropriate when encouraging a prevention behavior (i.e. smoking cessation), but loss-framed messages appear to have more impact when encouraging an early-detection (screening) behavior (i.e. mammography). The primary goal of this project is to investigate whether gain-versus loss-framed messages are more influential in encouraging individuals to complete a six-week trial of bupropion SR therapy for smoking cessation and in smoking cessation itself. We hypothesize that gain-framed messages will be more effective in promoting smoking cessation with bupropion SR than loss-framed messages, even though many of the slogans, warnings, and other print information directed toward smokers are loss-framed. A secondary aim of the study will be to examine the relative value of gain framed and loss framed messages in relationship to characteristics of the smoker, including history of cancer, gender, depression, and alcohol use. Finally, the durability of message framing effects will be evaluated using data from three and six month follow-ups.
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