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Hypnosis and behaviour therapy in smoking cessation
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1.90
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L
z
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Y
E 120
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Smoking
Not Smoking
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Fig. 4. Thiocyanate levels at baseline and three-month follow-up for the attention placebo
group.
size of the experimental groups does reduce the statistical power of the analysis, but the
results would have indicated any trends, representing treatment effects, if they had
been present. Secondly, the follow-up time is limited to only 6 months after treatment
completion. The conclusions of this study, therefore, must be restricted to the short
term effects of treatment.
With these points in mind, the implications of these findings are that there is a need
to demonstrate that active treatment effects are responsible for smoking cessation suc-
cesses. All studies in smoking cessation should control for other than the active treat-
ment effects. The use of Attention Placebo groups in smoking cessation research must
be strongly recommended. Furthermore, the lack of significant active treatment effects
in this study necessitates the conclusion that it yet remains to be demonstrated that the
specific approaches of particular smoking cessation treatments play a major role in the
cessation process.
Therefore, the seeking of effective treatments for smoking should at this stage be
considered to be secondary to the important search for the nonspecific variables which
facilitate smoking cessation. When these variables have been found it may be appro-