Helping Those With Mental Illness Quit Smoking

Cognitive Motivational subjects will receive four evidence-based preparatory interventions (motivational interviewing, smoking reduction, practice quit attempt, and pre-quit use of nicotine replacement medication) (25 - 30 minutes each).

Attention control subjects will receive four placebo individual sessions (25-30 minutes each). The session content will reemphasize group discussion of the personal health risks from smoking.

Cognitive Motivational subjects will be asked to take one 21 mg patch/day for 4 weeks.

Everyone to be put into the experimental or active comparator group will attend 2 group meetings over two weeks each of which lasts 40 minutes. Experience with the Kicking Butts program indicates that this duration is well tolerated by this population. The content of these two group meetings is based on the Kicking Butts program. The Kicking Butts program was initially developed as a cessation intervention, but consistent with the literature about the need to prepare this population to make a quit attempt, has evolved to emphasize preparation for quitting. Topics addressed include the health consequences of smoking, reasons to quit and methods of quitting.