Introduction: Weight gain during smoking cessation is a major concern. The relationship between smoking and weight is complex and not well understood. There is interest in substitution of nicotine with food.

Aims: This study investigates whether the development of food addiction explains weight gain following a quit smoking attempt.

Methods: This study was a subset of a larger study investigating smoking cessation in New Zealand. Participants were assessed on five visits over a 1-year period. Using validated instruments, measurements for smoking, weight, food intake, craving and food addiction were taken.

Results: Among the 256 participants, 54.7% attended at least one follow-up. Food addiction prevalence at baseline was 0.8%. 14.5% were quit at early follow-up and 14.8% at late follow-up. Weight gain was found in abstainers compared to those still smoking. No increase in food addiction was detected.

Conclusion: The development of food addiction does not play a prominent role in post quit weight gain. Further research is needed to elucidate the underlying weight gain mechanisms.

Introduction: Smokers with respiratory diseases are less likely to quit than those without impaired lung function, yet few studies have investigated the effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions with this population, and none have used a computer-tailored approach.

Aims: This paper aims to fill this gap in the literature by exploring smokers’ experiences when trying to quit and their perceptions of a computer-tailored intervention.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 26 smokers recruited from six general practises in North London. Thematic analysis was conducted to examine participants’ previous experiences of quitting and their perceptions of receiving personal tailored feedback reports to aid smoking cessation.

Results: Participants discussed how their positive smoking experiences coupled with their negative cessation experiences led to conflicts with quitting smoking. Although the computer-tailored intervention was key in prompting quit attempts and participants valued its personal approach; it was not sufficient as a stand-alone intervention.

Conclusions: The results highlight the difficulties that smokers experience when quitting and the need for a more personalised stop smoking service in smokers with respiratory diseases. The study also demonstrates the application and potential for computer-tailored intervention as part of a wider programme of long-term smoking cessation.

Introduction: The emergence of electronic cigarettes (ECs) has become a growing phenomenon that has sharply split opinion among the public health community, physicians, and lawmakers.

Aims: We sought to determine chest physician perceptions regarding ECs.

Methods: We conducted a web-based survey of 18,000 American College of Chest Physician (CHEST) members to determine health care provider experiences with EC users and to characterise provider perceptions regarding ECs.

Results/Findings: There were 994 respondents. Eighty-eight per cent reported that patients had asked their opinion of ECs, and 31% reported EC use among at least 10% of their patients. More disagreed than agreed (41% vs. 21%) that patients could improve their health by switching from tobacco smoking to daily EC use. Respondents were split on whether ECs promote tobacco cessation (32% agree vs. 33% disagree).

Conclusions: Current perceptions of ECs are variable among providers. More than 1/3 of respondents felt that EC's could be used for smoking cessation for smokers who failed prior quit attempts with approved therapies. However, many respondents were not convinced that ECs will reduce harms from tobacco use. There is an urgent need to generate additional high quality scientific data regarding ECs to inform chest physicians, health professionals, and the general public.

Introduction: We characterised tobacco use, cessation patterns, and patient satisfaction with a cessation support program at an NCI Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center following a mandatory tobacco assessment and automatic referral.

Methods: A 3-month follow-up survey (via web, paper, or telephone) was administered between March 2013 and November 2013 for all patients referred to and contacted by a cessation support service, and who consented to participation three months prior to administration. Patients were asked about their perceived importance and self-efficacy to quit smoking, quit attempts, and satisfaction with the cessation service.

Results: Fifty-two percent (257/499) of patients who participated in the cessation support service, and consented to be contacted again, completed a follow-up survey. Of those who participated, 9.7% were referred to the service as having recently quit tobacco (in the past 30 days) and 23.6% reported having quit at the time of first contact. At the 3-month follow-up, 48.1% reported being smoke-free for the previous seven days. When patients were asked about their experience with the cessation service, 86.4% reported being very or mostly satisfied with the service, and 64.3% reported that their experience with the service increased their satisfaction with the care received at the cancer centre.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that recently diagnosed cancer patients are aware that quitting tobacco is important, are making attempts to quit, and are amenable to an opt-out automatic referral cessation support service as part of their cancer care.

Introduction: Smoking before and during pregnancy is a risk for women and their babies, but encouraging tobacco abstinence challenges practitioners.

Aims: We define correlates of tobacco use around pregnancy and determine the impact of providers’ efforts to encourage abstinence.

Methods: We analysed responses (2000 – 2010) from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System questionnaire for Maine, United States, a state with higher than average smoking rates. We performed multivariable logistic regression analysis with demographic and behavioural independent variables, and smoking in the last 3 months before and in the last 3 months of pregnancy as dependent variables.

Results: Of 12,409 questionnaire responders, 32% smoked before pregnancy; 60.5% of these women continued during pregnancy. Women were more likely to smoke before pregnancy and to continue during pregnancy if they had a previous birth, were unmarried, had ≤ a high school education, or had a household income ≤ $20,000/year. Pre-pregnancy smokers were more likely to continue smoking during pregnancy if their gestational weight gain was less than recommended and, surprisingly, if they recalled a provider discussion about smoking cessation.

Conclusions: We identify women at risk for smoking before and during pregnancy and demonstrate that current tobacco abstinence interventions by providers may not always be effective.

Introduction: Social media advertising could be effective in promoting smoking cessation. However, it's salience to Pacific youth in New Zealand who smoke is unknown.

Aim: To explore the views that 18–25 year old Pacific smokers have towards online smoking cessation advertising.

Methods: Twenty young Pacific smokers, aged 18–25 years, were recruited through indirect snowballing methods interviewed in focus groups by a female Pacific researcher. Questions centred on smoking cessation advice via social media and devices, preferences for advertisements, effective features and implications for internet banner and ad designs, positive versus negative framing, cultural cues and motivations. The general inductive approach was used to analyse the data for common themes.

Results: Smartphones were the most common device and Facebook the social media site most often used by participants. The informants recommended that the advertisements should have the following features: central position, eye-catching, bold imagery using simple language; endorsed by Pacific Island personalities; and positively framed messages to secure and maintain interest. The collective nature of Pacific cultures should be leveraged and testimonies from previous smokers used to strengthen motivation and dispel common myths around smoking.

Conclusion: There are potential opportunities for social media to be used as a platform to promote smoking cessation among Pacific young people.

Introduction: There is wide variation in the success rates of practitioners employed to help smokers to stop, even once a range of potential confounding factors has been taken into account.

Aim: This paper examined whether personality characteristics of practitioners might play a role success rates.

Methods: Data from 1,958 stop-smoking treatment episodes in two stop-smoking services (SSS) involving 19 stop-smoking practitioners were used in the analysis. The outcome measure was clients’ biochemically verified quit status 4 weeks after the target quit date. The five dimensions of personality, as assessed by the Ten-Item Personality Inventory, were included as predictor variables: openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, and neuroticism. A range of client and other practitioner characteristics were used as covariates. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to determine if managers' ratings of practitioner personality were also associated with clients’ quit status.

Results: Multi-level random intercept models indicated that clients of practitioners with a higher extraversion score had greater odds of being abstinent at four weeks (self-assessed: OR = 1.10, 95% CI = 1.01–1.19; manager-assessed: OR = 1.32, 95% CI = 1.21–1.44).

Conclusions: More extraverted stop smoking practitioners appear to have greater success in advising their clients to quit smoking. Findings need to be confirmed in larger practitioner populations, other SSS, and in different smoking cessation contexts. If confirmed, specific training may be needed to assist more introverted stop smoking practitioners.

Introduction: This study evaluates the association of baseline e-cigarette use with smoking cessation in a sample of 2-year college student smokers.

Methods: Participants were 1,400 students from over 60 2-year colleges across 25 states who were current smokers enrolled in a web-assisted tobacco intervention (WATI) trial. Survey data at baseline, 1-, and 6-months, were evaluated.

Results: At 6-months, baseline e-cigarette users were more likely to report cessation of traditional cigarettes compared to non-users (OR 1.39, 95% CI 1.002–1.92). Cessation was also associated with higher baseline confidence in quitting and greater time to first cigarette after awakening. Baseline e-cigarette use was not associated with self-reported cessation of all nicotine/tobacco products (OR 1.09, 95% CI 0.75–1.58) nor biochemically verified cessation of all nicotine/tobacco products (OR 0.83, 95% CI 0.47–1.47). Higher confidence was again associated with both self-reported and biochemically verified cessation of all nicotines.