An examination of the process of relapse prevention therapy designed to aid smoking cessation.

The process of relapse prevention (RP) therapy is examined. Patients' responses were recorded primarily during telephonic, RP counseling designed to facilitate smoking cessation. A computer program that prompted counselor initiatives and provided a framework for the recording of patient responses guided counselor interaction with patients. A total of 437 patients took part in 1650 counseling sessions and reported 2882 urge/lapse situations. The 2531 situations, for which complete data were available, and 4879 coping responses were analyzed. The main findings are (1) the descriptions of urge/lapse situations provided by patients in treatment are similar to those derived by research that aimed to discover the determinants of relapse without specific treatment, (2) number of coping responses rather than number of situations is related to treatment outcome, and (3) the more coping responses discussed during treatment, the better the treatment outcome.