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University offers smokers lots of money for quitting
Not only does smoking endanger your health, it also causes bad breath and odors, makes you addicted and expensive. There are enough reasons to keep your hands off cigarettes. Unfortunately, this is pretty difficult for most people. Swiss researchers have now carried out a promising experiment. They offered smokers financial incentives to quit.
Smoking favors many serious diseases
Smoking is dangerous for your health. Among other things, tobacco use favors twelve types of cancer such as lung cancer, pancreatic cancer and colon cancer, cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack and stroke, diabetes, atherosclerosis (arteriosclerosis) or the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease COPD (smoker's lung). The smoke also makes you stink. Last but not least, cigarettes are expensive.
There are plenty of good reasons to stop smoking: tobacco consumption endangers your health, causes bad breath and is expensive. Researchers have now found in an experiment that a financial incentive to stop smoking can help. (Image: alfexe / fotolia.com) Good reasons for smoking cessation
There are many good reasons for giving up smoking. Although some smokers can stop more easily, most people find it very difficult to quit smoking. Some say that smokers need a strong will to get out of their addiction. Others say cold withdrawal is the best way to stop smoking.
Swiss scientists have now tested a fairly simple method that can help quit: researchers at Geneva University have offered smokers money to quit.
Low earners smoke more often
As the Swiss National News Agency (sda) reports, low paid workers are smoking more frequently and may be particularly receptive to financial incentives to quit. A research team led by Jean-François Etter of the University of Geneva has now tested whether the prospect of money enough to break the addiction, or whether it needs additional resources.
The scientists found that a financial incentive works about as well as drugs or medical aids such as nicotine patches. The different resources could be even more effective in combination. The researchers published their findings in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Giving up smoking is rewarded financially
According to the information, the study involved 800 smokers whose annual income was below 50,000 Swiss francs (around 46,000 euros). The subjects, all of whom should quit smoking, were divided into two groups. The one group received supermarket vouchers of increasing value for quitting. Those who remained smoke-free for the first six months received a total of 1,500 francs (almost 1,400 euros).
Biochemical tests were used to check whether the study participants actually left their fingers on cigarettes. After half a year, there were no other rewards. The subjects were again checked after 18 months, whether they had remained smoke-free.
Many start smoking again
More than half (55 percent) of the study participants receiving the vouchers remained smoke free for the first three months. For those without a reward it was only twelve percent. And after six months it was still 45 percent compared to eleven percent. However, most of this group started smoking again after the financial incentive disappeared. After 18 months, according to the sda report, only 9.5 percent were smoke-free.
Long-term success rate
After all, this long-term success rate was 5.8 percentage points above that when there was no reward (3.7 percent). Medical aids and medicines create a similar increase in the success rate. Researchers assume that a combination of medical and financial incentives could be even more effective.
The rewards would also have to be extended over a longer period of time. "We think that could lower the number of people starting to smoke again," says Etter.
Cost effective against health care costs
"While the cost incentive approach would be more expensive than the drug approach, it could still be cost effective against the huge health costs of smoking," said Etter.
While there are already smartphone apps that show smokers how much money they save on quitting, but a study on the comparison of real incentives and the calculation of saved money there is to his knowledge not, said Etter the sda , However, he is currently working with his team on a study on the efficiency of the stop-tobacco app. (Ad)