Money is stronger than tobacco addiction
Financial rewards help smokers quit tobacco. This is shown by a new study from the University of Geneva.
Smoking causes one-third of all preventable deaths in the population. An experimental University of Geneva study led by Jean-François Etter of the Faculty of Medicine, has now tested a new approach to help smokers kick their addiction.
Instead of medical support or medication, the team offered only a financial reward to people who wanted to quit smoking.
The study involved 800 people from the Lake Geneva area who earned less than 50,000 Swiss francs per year. The people were randomly divided into two groups. The first group received shopping vouchers as a reward if they stopped smoking, the second nothing. The highest possible reward was 1,500 francs if the test person did not touch a cigarette for half a year.
Participants were tested again 18 months after the study began - one year after the last reward was received.
Of the control group, which received no reward, 88% of the participants smoked again after three months, 89% after six months and 96.7% after 18 months. The group that received a reward lasted a little longer: after three months, 45% smoked again, after six months 55%. But an effect was also maintained in the longer term: After 18 months, 9.5% of the people managed to remain smoke-free - more than twice as many as in the control group.
Other methods not more successful
3.7% non-smokers versus 9.5% non-smokers - a difference of 5.8%, that doesn't sound overwhelming at first glance. But what is astonishing is when the result is compared with other studies: if only medication or only medical advice is offered, the success rate is 5% in each case; if the two methods are combined, it is 6% - i.e. within a comparable range.
Study leader Etter adds: "Because of the large difference between the number of smoke-free individuals after six months and after 1.5 years, we concluded that the financial rewards should have been continued for a longer period. We hypothesize that this could further reduce the number of people who start smoking again. Furthermore, if we combine the method with medical advice and medication, we could achieve an even higher success rate."
