However, in a prior clinical trial, we reported that the later the planned quit date, the greater the likelihood of lapsing early on (Hughes, Dorsomorphin chemical structure Solomon, Livingston, Callas, & Peters, 2010). The one prospective study of this association, done several years ago, found that delaying quitting increased, not decreased, success in quitting. This small study randomly assigned smokers either to quit immediately or 2 weeks later (Flaxman, 1978). In the study, 2 of the 16 participants (13%) in the immediate condition were abstinent at 6 months compared with 9 of the 16 (57%) in the delayed condition. Although these results are mixed, there are plausible reasons to hypothesize that delay is associated with less success. For example, delaying a quit attempt may allow motivation to quit to decline and this undermines cessation success.

Or perhaps, delayed quit attempts are a marker of initial low motivation to quit. Also, delayed quit attempts may be mostly by those who have failed to quit on many past attempts, decide to put more time into planning (and thereby delaying) their attempt. As mentioned above, we recently completed a randomized trial in which we found that delaying the quit attempt was associated with early relapse (Hughes et al., 2010). We now present further secondary analyses using other measures of time to quit attempt and other measures of abstinence to examine consistency across measures. One rationale for reporting our results is that they examine the prospective association of delay and quit success. The above referenced surveys used retrospective reports of quit attempts up to 14 years earlier.

Participant��s recall of quit attempts many years ago is often inaccurate (Berg et al., 2010; Gilpin & Pierce, 1994). Determination of whether delaying a quit attempt is associated with less success is important because some behavioral treatments, for example, self-monitoring, obtaining social support, or gradual reduction, require delaying a quit attempt (Abrams et al., 2003; Hughes & Carpenter, 2005; McEwen, Hajek, McRobbie, & West, 2006; Perkins, Conklin, & Levine, 2007). Some pharmacological treatments, for example, pretreatment or immunotherapy, also require smokers to delay quitting (Maurer & Bachmann, 2007; Shiffman & Ferguson, 2008).

Description of Clinical Trial In this trial, we randomly assigned smokers who wished to quit gradually to (a) gradual cessation counseling + nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) to reduce prior to quitting; n = 297), (b) abrupt Cilengitide cessation counseling (n = 299), or (c) a brief advice control condition (n = 150; Hughes et al., 2010). Participants averaged 46 years of age, smoked 23 cigarettes/day, and had a Fagerstr?m Test for Nicotine Dependence score of 5.9. Half (46%) were men, and 76% were non-Hispanic Whites. Counseling occurred via phone, and medications were provided via mail.