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Objectives: To describe smoking and quitting history among multiethnic adolescent smokers and examine these as correlates of readiness to quit. Methods: Data were analyzed from 121 high school smokers. Sociodemographic characteristics, self-reported smoking history, number and duration of recent quit attempts, attitudes toward smoking/quitting, and readiness to quit were included. Results: Smoking and quitting history variables were associated with adolescents' stage of readiness to quit. A reasonably consistent pattern emerged in which those in the preparation stage were significantly different from the precontemplators and contemplators. Conclusions: Results are discussed in terms of interventions matched to individuals' readiness to quit.
Key words: adolescent smoking, smoking cessation, stage of change, readiness to quit
Am J Health Behav. 2006;30(6):663-674
After 3 decades of efforts to prevent smoking among children, large numbers of young people continue to smoke.1 Among high school seniors, 25% were current cigarette smokers in 2004.2 Adult smoking rates have declined steadily since 1965; however, the smoking rate among adolescents rose throughout most of the 1990s.3 Since then, there have been encouraging declines in adolescent smoking,1 although efforts must be sustained to reach the 2010 national health objective of no more than 16%." Smoking cessation among young people will help further reduce the prevalence of smoking,1 but although a considerable percentage of adolescents would like to quit, the majority of them are unsuccessful.5
There is a need to more fully understand adolescent smoking behavior and which interventions will be effective in helping them quit. The transtheoretical model (TTM)6-8 is an integrative model of behavior change that has been extensively used to guide behavior change for adult smoking cessation. The central organizing construct of the model is represented by 5 stages of change, which indicate different levels of readiness to quit smoking. Readiness-to-quit constructs have increasing been used as an alternative outcome measure in intervention research. The stages of change for smoking cessation among current smokers include 3 stages: precontem-plation, contemplation, and preparation. The action and maintenance stages describe smokers who have quit.9 Quitting smoking is often cyclical, with smokers repeating the stage cycle numerous times before successfully quitting. A final stage, termination, is sometimes referred to as the last phase of the stages of change model. Although those in the maintenance stage continue to actively...