The proposed research is intended to provide: (a) important new information on methods to promote smoking cessation, and (b) information on the conditions of elicitation and characteristics of smoking urges. Resulting research is intended to increase the effectiveness of smoking cessation strategies and our understanding of tobacco dependence and relapse. In Study 1 we will compare rapid smoking and two forms of nicotine gum treatment on their effectiveness in producing cessation. These treatments are the best supported types of smoking interventions, yet they have never been directly compared. Moreover, it has never been shown that rapid smoking produces effects that could not be accounted for by nicotine replacement per se. All three treatments (N = 30/treatment) will be paired with both full or partial counseling conditions. Full counseling includes coping response training while partial counseling does not. Our previous research suggests that coping response training results in a large increase in long-term abstinence, but this finding requires replication and extension. Study 1 will include process measures that should reflect the acquisition of an aversion (e.g., heart rate & pulse-transit-time response to cigarettes) and coping skills. Outcome will be assessed by self- and collateral-report, and bioassays. Study 2 is intended to lead to an improved aversive smoking-cessation treatment. Four aversive smoking treatments will be compared, all of which will be paired with counseling: standard Rapid Smoking (RS), Parametrically superior Rapid Smoking (PRS), Imaginally enhanced Rapid Smoking (IRS), and Health Risk enhanced Rapid Smoking (HRRS). These treatments are designed to produce enhanced therapeutic effects through theoretically distinct routes. Also, two different maintenance strategies will be evaluated. One strategy is aimed at preventing any smoking. The second strategy is targeted at mitigating the effects of minor smoking episodes. Clinical outcome will be evaluated using techniques similar to those used in Study 1. Study 3 is designed to yield information on the conditions/stimuli that elicit self-report of urges to smoke and characteristic psychophysiological urge correlates. Urge-eliciting stimuli to be investigated include a laboratory stressor, gustatory attributes of cigarettes, and the pharmacological effects of cigarettes (drug priming). We hope that the resulting data will increase our understanding of how affect, physiological variables, and urge self-reports covary, and what theoretical urge models are most consistent with the pattern of covariation.
| Sherman, J E; Zinser, M C; Sideroff, S I et al. (1989) Subjective dimensions of heroin urges: influence of heroin-related and affectively negative stimuli. Addict Behav 14:611-23 |
| Tiffany, S T; Martin, E M; Baker, T B (1986) Treatments for cigarette smoking: an evaluation of the contributions of aversion and counseling procedures. Behav Res Ther 24:437-52 |
| Brandon, T H; Tiffany, S T; Baker, T B (1986) The process of smoking relapse. NIDA Res Monogr 72:104-17 |
