“Catastrophic” pathways to smoking cessation: findings from national survey
Open accessAbstract
OBJECTIVE: To assess the extent to which the prevailing model of smoking cessation (that smokers typically prepare their attempts to stop smoking in advance and that doing so increases their chances of success) is correct. DESIGN: Cross sectional household survey. SETTING: England. PARTICIPANTS: 918 smokers who reported having made at least one quit attempt and 996 ex-smokers aged 16 and over. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Whether the most recent quit attempt was planned in advance and whether quit attempts made at least six months before resulted in at least six months' abstinence. RESULTS: 48.6% of smokers reported that their most recent quit attempt was put into effect immediately the decision to quit was made. Unplanned quit attempts were more likely to succeed for at least six months: among respondents who had made a quit attempt between six months and five years previously the odds of success were 2.6 times higher (95% confidence interval 1.9 to 3.6) in unplanned attempts than in planned attempts; in quit attempts made 6-12 months previously the corresponding figure was 2.5 (1.4 to 4.7). The differences remained after controlling for age, sex, and socioeconomic group. CONCLUSIONS: A model of the process of change based on "catastrophe theory" is proposed, in which smokers have varying levels of motivational "tension" to stop and then "triggers" in the environment result in a switch in motivational state. If that switch involves immediate renunciation of cigarettes, this can signal a more complete transformation than if it involves a plan to quit at some future point.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In approximately half the cases where a quit attempt is made, there is no pre-planning; the smoker implements the quit attempt as soon as the decision is made.
“In approximately half the cases where this occurs, there is no pre-planning; the smoker implements the quit attempt as soon as the decision is made (28).”
From The Multiple Facets of Cigarette Addiction and What They Mean for Encouraging and Helping Smokers to Stop (2009) · cites this paper as [28]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
The Transtheoretical Model of Health Behavior Change.
Prochaska, J. O., & Velicer, W. F. (1997) · American Journal of Health Promotion · doi:10.4278/0890-1171-12.1.38 · Cited by 7,782 · see citing works
Winblad, B., Palmer, K., Kivipelto, M., Jelic, V., Fratiglioni, L., Wahlund, L. ‐., Nordberg, A., Bäckman, L., Albert, M., Almkvist, O., et al. (2004) · Journal of Internal Medicine · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2796.2004.01380.x · Cited by 4,946 · see citing works
Competing interests: none declared.
Hirsch, L. (2006) · Cited by 1,396 · see citing works
Mortality in relation to smoking: 40 years' observations on male British doctors
Doll, R., Peto, R., Wheatley, K., Gray, R., & Sutherland, I. (1994) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.309.6959.901 · Cited by 1,321 · see citing works
Classification criteria for mild cognitive impairment
Ritchie, K. A., Artéro, S., & Touchon, J. (2001) · Neurology · doi:10.1212/wnl.56.1.37 · Cited by 831 · see citing works
West, R., & Brown, J. (2013) · doi:10.1002/9781118484890 · Cited by 816 · see citing works
Self-citationTime for a change: putting the transtheoretical (stages of change) model to rest
WEST, R. (2005) · Addiction · doi:10.1111/j.1360-0443.2005.01139.x · Cited by 700 · see citing works
Self-citationVariations in case definition affect prevalence but not outcomes of mild cognitive impairment
Fisk, J. D., Merry, H. R., & Rockwood, K. J. (2003) · Neurology · doi:10.1212/01.wnl.0000089238.07771.c7 · Cited by 255 · see citing works
To what extent do smokers plan quit attempts?
Larabie, L. C. (2005) · Tobacco Control · doi:10.1136/tc.2005.013615 · Cited by 199 · see citing works
Mild cognitive impairment: an epidemiological perspective
Ritchie, K. A. (2004) · Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience · doi:10.31887/dcns.2004.6.4/kritchie · Cited by 167 · see citing works
Aging, memory, and the cholinergic system: A study of dichotic listening☆
Drachman, D. B., Noffsinger, D., Sahakian, B. J., Kurdziel, S. A., & FLEMING, P. (1980) · Neurobiology of Aging · doi:10.1016/0197-4580(80)90022-6 · Cited by 101 · see citing works
Scopolamine effects on memory, language, visuospatial praxis and psychomotor speed
Flicker, C., Serby, M., & Ferris, S. H. (1990) · Psychopharmacology · doi:10.1007/bf02244414 · Cited by 94 · see citing works
Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor-associated angioedema: higher risk in blacks than whites
Burkhart, G. A., Brown, N. J., Griffin, M. R., Ray, W. A., Hammerstrom, T., & Weiss, S. R. (1996) · Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety · doi:10.1002/(sici)1099-1557(199605)5:3 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Moore, D., Aveyard, P., Connock, M., Wang, D., Fry-Smith, A., & Barton, P. (2009) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.b1024 · Cited by 372 · see citing works
Buller, D. B., Borland, R., Bettinghaus, E. P., Shane, J. H., & Zimmerman, D. E. (2014) · Telemedicine and e-Health · doi:10.1089/tmj.2013.0169 · Cited by 178 · see citing works
West, R. (2009) · COPD: Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease · doi:10.1080/15412550903049181 · Cited by 145 · see citing works
Self-citationMethodologic and Design Issues in Patient-Centered e-Health Research
Resnicow, K., Strecher, V., Couper, M., Chua, H., Little, R., Nair, V., Polk, T. A., & Atienza, A. A. (2010) · American Journal of Preventive Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2009.09.034 · Cited by 30 · see citing works
- Authors
- West, R., & Sohal, T.
- Affiliations
- University College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- West, Robert
- ORCID
- West, Robert
- Venue
- BMJ
- Publisher
- BMJ
- Published
- 2006-01-27
- Volume
- 332
- Issue
- 7539
- Pages
- 458-460
- ISSN
- 0007-1447 (ISSN-L)
- 0959-8138
- 1468-5833
- PMC
- PMC1382540
- OpenAlex
- W2154500574
- Cited by
- 287
- References
- 13
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 24 · 2013: 22 · 2012: 19
- FWCI
- 15.02
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- BMJ (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Fondation de France
- Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Smoking Behavior and Cessation
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Behavioral Health and Interventions
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes
- Keywords
- smoking cessation, quit attempts, catastrophe theory, abstinence, former smokers, motivation, precipitating factors
- MeSH terms
- Smoking Prevention, Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Decision Making, Female, United Kingdom, Health Surveys, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Motivation, Smoking, Smoking Cessation, Age Distribution
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
