Smoking cessation in groups--who benefits in the long term?

The 'Rauchfrei Programm' is the most widespread cognitive behavioral group program for smoking cessation in Germany. The aim of this study was to evaluate smoking cessation in the routine care setting and to investigate whether certain characteristics predict long-term abstinence. The study is a longitudinal field study with a one group pre-post-follow-up design. Participants were 1319 smokers, who were asked to complete questionnaires before and after the program. Twelve months later, participants were followed-up by phone. 48.1% of participants attended every session. At the end of the program, 60.9% of the participants were smoke-free. After one year, the abstinence rate accounted for 31.8% (Intention-to-treat). A logistic regression analysis showed that male gender, higher age, being married, lower level of nicotine dependence as well as adherence to the program significantly increased the likelihood of abstinence, whereas education and employment did not. No significant influence of self-payment on the rates of abstinence was observed. It is concluded that the modern smoking cessation program is highly recommendable as it achieves sufficient abstinence rates in a real-life setting. However, it still remains a challenge to increase adherence rates and to achieve comparable success rates in smokers with different characteristics.