Objective: To describe a mixed-methods approach to develop and test a basic behavioral science-informed intervention to motivate behavior change in 3 high-risk clinical populations. Our theoretically derived intervention comprised a combination of positive affect and self-affirmation (PA/SA), which we applied to 3 clinical chronic disease…

Objective: Evaluate the effects of a prevention program targeting both eating disorders and obesity at 1- and 2-year follow-ups. Method: Female college students at risk for these outcomes because of body image concerns (N = 398) were randomized to the "Healthy Weight 2" group-based 4-hr prevention program, which promotes lasting healthy…

The authors examined the subtype structure of smokers classified in the precontemplation stage of change within the transtheoretical model. From a general practice-based sample of 1,499 daily smoking patients from Germany (participation rate 80%), they used a subgroup of 929 smokers who were classified in the precontemplation stage and applied…

A community-based intervention program was tested with 181 children ages 6-12 and their mothers exposed to intimate partner violence during the past year. A sequential assignment procedure allocated participants to 3 conditions: child-only intervention, child-plus-mother intervention (CM), and a wait-list comparison. A 2-level hierarchical linear…

Nurses (N=29) participated as either control or treatment subjects in a nicotine fading and abstinence training worksite smoking cessation program. Treatment subjects had a superior abstinence rate at 6, 9, and 12 months follow-up. Negative affect, availability of cigarettes, and the presence of others played prominent roles in relapses.…

Evaluated effectiveness of posttreatment programs on weight loss maintenance. Assigned mildly and moderately obese adults (N=123) to either behavior therapy only or to behavior therapy combined with therapist-contact posttreatment maintenance programs which varied by use of social influence and/or aerobic exercise. Found all four posttreatment…

In a study of aversive control of smoking behavior, subjects were randomly assigned to rapid smoking, excessive smoking, or control conditions. Overall, there was a statistically reliable treatment effect, according to measures of percentage reductions in smoking and subjects maintaining total abstinence. However, this treatment effect had…

The abstinence violation effect (AVE) proposed in Marlatt and Gordon's model of smoking relapse was operationalized as a combination of internal, stable, and global causal attributions for smoking following the attainment of abstinence from smoking. Smoking cessation program participants who relapsed following a slip reported significantly higher…

Forty habitual smokers were assigned to one of four treatment groups: warm, smoky air plus rapid smoking; warm, smoky air only; rapid smoking only; an attention-placebo control group. The three aversion groups were quite similar and, taken together, were smoking less at the six-month follow-up than the controls. (Author)

Reports outcome measures obtained from patients, therapists, and clinical observers in the Penn Psychotherapy Project. The relationship between residual gain score and ratings of benefits suggest that posttreatment ratings of outcome take account of the fact that amount of change to be expected depends on initial level of functioning. (Author)

Subjects (N=20) participated in a smoking-reduction program that attempted to assess the initial effectiveness of a rapid-smoking procedure administered to groups. Results are discussed in terms of self-set and the attribution of behavior change. (Author)

Randomly assigned 1,218 smokers to cells in 4 (nicotine gum delivered ad lib, fixed regimen nicotine gum, placebo gum, no gum) x 3 (self-selected relapse prevention modules, randomly administered modules, no modules) design. Subjects receiving nicotine gum were more likely to be abstinent at 2- and 6-month followups. Fixed regimen accounted for…

Examined how a spouse can help or hinder an individual who wants to stop smoking. An experienced helpfulness score was calculated from the responses of married subjects (N=46) in a smoking cessation program. Successful abstainers had partners who were more reinforcing and less punishing of the subjects' efforts. (JAC)

Relapse prevention remains a major challenge to smoking cessation efforts. T. H. Brandon, B. N. Collins, L. M. Juliano, and A. B. Lazev (2000) found that a series of 8 empirically based relapse-prevention booklets mailed to ex-smokers over 1 year significantly reduced relapse. This study dismantled 2 components of that intervention: the amount of…

This study's aims were (a) to investigate the feasibility of a school-based motivational enhancement therapy (MET) intervention in voluntarily attracting adolescents who smoke marijuana regularly but who are not seeking formal treatment and (b) to evaluate the efficacy of the intervention in reducing marijuana use. Ninety-seven adolescents who had…