Introduction: People with serious mental illness (SMI) have high rates of smoking and need better access to cessation treatment. Mobile behavioral interventions for cessation have been effective for the general population, but are not usable by many with SMI due to cognitive impairments or severe symptoms. We developed a tailored mobile cessation treatment intervention with features to reduce cognitive load.
Method: We enrolled 20 smokers with SMI and showed them how to use the program on a device of their choice. They were assessed at 8 weeks for intervention use, usability, satisfaction, smoking characteristics, and biologically verified abstinence.
Results: Participants accessed an average of 23.6 intervention sessions (SD = 17.05; range 1-48; median = 17.5) for an average total of 231.64 minutes (SD = 227.13; range 4.89-955.21; median = 158.18). For 87% of the sessions, average satisfaction scores were 3 or greater on a scale of 1-4. Regarding smoking, 25% of participants had reduced their smoking and 10% had biologically verified abstinence from smoking at 8 weeks.
Conclusion: Home and community use of this mobile cessation intervention was feasible among smokers with SMI. Further research is needed to evaluate such scalable approaches to increase access to behavioral treatment for this group.
Introduction: Proximal environments could facilitate smoking cessation among low-income smokers by making cessation appealing to strive for and tenable.
Aims: We sought to examine how home smoking rules and proximal environmental factors such as other household members' and peers' smoking behaviors and attitudes related to low-income smokers' past quit attempts, readiness, and self-efficacy to quit.
Methods: This analysis used data from Offering Proactive Treatment Intervention (OPT-IN) (randomized control trial of proactive tobacco cessation outreach) baseline survey, which was completed by 2,406 participants in 2011/12. We tested the associations between predictors (home smoking rules and proximal environmental factors) and outcomes (past-year quit attempts, readiness to quit, and quitting self-efficacy).
Results: Smokers who lived in homes with more restrictive household smoking rules, and/or reported having 'important others' who would be supportive of their quitting, were more likely to report having made a quit attempt in the past year, had greater readiness to quit, and greater self-efficacy related to quitting.
Conclusions: Adjustments to proximal environments, including strengthening household smoking rules, might encourage cessation even if other household members are smokers.
We discuss the most recent changes in smoking policies and support for smoking cessation offered to smokers at US workplaces. We used reports of employed adults (n = 112,008) regarding smoking restrictions and support for smoking cessation offered at their indoor workplaces from the 2010-11 and 2014-15 Tobacco Use Supplement-Current Population Survey. The percentage of adults who reported having workplace smoking restrictions was 94% in 2010-11 and 93% in 2014-15 (P = 0.001). There was a decrease in the Northeastern region (P < 0.001) and no significant changes in the other three US regions. The percentages decreased in Hawaii, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee and increased in Indiana, Nebraska, and Wyoming. The percentage of employees who reported having workplace support for smoking cessation increased from 24% to 29% (P < 0.001), which was uniform across all US regions but differed across the US states. The percentages decreased in Hawaii and increased in the majority of states. Analysis of smokers' reports (versus all reports) resulted in lower percentages of workplaces with smoking restrictions and support for smoking cessation. It is essential to further enhance support for smoking cessation offered to smokers at US workplaces.

