A volitional help sheet to encourage smoking cessation: a randomized exploratory trial

OBJECTIVE: The volitional help sheet draws on Gollwitzer's (1993) concept of implementation intentions by encouraging smokers to link temptations to smoke with appropriate behavioral responses derived from Prochaska and DiClemente's (1983) transtheoretical model. DESIGN: There were 193 smokers who were randomly allocated to receive questionnaires, planning instruction, and a volitional help sheet or one of three control conditions: Questionnaire-only; questionnaire plus planning instruction; or questionnaire, planning instruction plus volitional help sheet without the explicit instruction to link temptations to smoke with appropriate behavioral responses. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Nicotine dependence, number of cigarettes smoked and quit status. RESULTS: Findings revealed significant decreases in nicotine dependence, number of cigarettes smoked, and increases in quitting in the volitional help sheet condition, relative to the control conditions, Fs(3, 189) = 7.48 to 10.78, ps < .01, eta 2 p s = .11 to .15. This pattern of findings did not hold for social?cognitive variables, with few differences between the volitional help sheet (standard instructions) group and the other conditions. CONCLUSION: The findings provide support for the use of implementation intentions to protect against health risk behaviors and are congruent with laboratory research showing that implementation intentions are a case of strategic automaticity.