The effectiveness of a computer-tailored smoking cessation intervention for participants in lung cancer screening: a randomised controlled trial.

Background: Lung cancer screening might be a teachable moment for smoking cessation intervention. The objective was to investigate whether a tailored self-help smoking cessation intervention is more effective in inducing smoking cessation compared to a standard brochure in male smokers who participate in the Dutch-Belgian randomised controlled lung cancer screening trial (NELSON trial).

Methods: Two random samples of male smokers who had received either a standard brochure (n=642) or a tailoring questionnaire for computer-tailored smoking cessation information (n=642) were sent a questionnaire to measure smoking behaviour two years after randomisation.

Results: Twenty-three percent of the male smokers in the tailored information group returned a completed tailoring questionnaire and thus received the tailored advice. The prolonged smoking abstinence was slightly, but not statistically significant, lower amongst those randomised in the tailored information group (12.5%) compared with the brochure group (15.6%) (OR=0.77 (95%-CI: 0.56-1.06). The level of education and intention to quit smoking significantly predicted smoking cessation at follow-up (p<0.05). The majority of the respondents did not recall whether and which smoking cessation intervention they had received at randomisation after 2-years of follow-up.

Conclusion: The current study showed no advantage of tailored smoking cessation information over standard self-help information amongst male smokers with a long term smoking history who participate in a lung cancer screening trial after two years of follow-up. However, the low percentage participants who actually received the tailored advice limited the ability to find an advantage.