Table 1.
Baseline characteristics of support persons and smokers by treatment conditiona
| Characteristics | Control group (N = 30) | Telephone counseling (N = 29) | p value |
| Among support persons | |||
| Age in years, M ± SD | 37.3 ± 13.4 | 35.7 ± 10.5 | 0.83 |
| Range | 20–71 | 18–53 | |
| Female gender | 97% (29) | 86% (25) | 0.20 |
| Race | 0.20 | ||
| White | 97% (29) | 93% (27) | |
| Hispanic | 3% (1) | 0% (0) | |
| Asian | 0% (0) | 7% (2) | |
| Married | 60% (18) | 59% (17) | 0.91 |
| Education | 0.80 | ||
| High school/general educational development | 10% (30) | 7% (2) | |
| Some college/trade school | 43% (13) | 38% (11) | |
| College degree | 40% (12) | 41% (12) | |
| Postgraduate degree | 7% (2) | 14% (4) | |
| Tobacco use | 0.34 | ||
| Never | 53% (16) | 35% (10) | |
| Experimented | 30% (9) | 41% (12) | |
| Former smoker | 17% (5) | 24% (7) | |
| Type of relationship: smoker is a … | 0.39 | ||
| Spouse/partner | 30% (9) | 28% (8) | |
| Parent | 10% (3) | 7% (2) | |
| Child | 20% (6) | 7% (2) | |
| Sibling | 13% (4) | 3% (1) | |
| Friend | 7% (2) | 21% (6) | |
| Coworker | 10% (3) | 14% (4) | |
| Boyfriend/girlfriend | 7% (2) | 17% (5) | |
| Other | 3% (1) | 3% (1) | |
| Lives with smoker | 33% (10) | 41% (12) | 0.52 |
| Among smokers | |||
| Age in years, M ± SD | 40.0 ± 14.7 | 37.0 ± 12.7 | 0.57 |
| Range | 19–68 | 21–63 | |
| Female gender | 47% (14) | 35% (10) | 0.34 |
| Race | |||
| White | 100% (30) | 97% (28) | |
| Hispanic | 0% (0) | 3% (1) | |
| Married | 50% (15) | 59% (17) | 0.51 |
| Education | 0.86 | ||
| Elementary school/junior high | 3% (1) | 3% (1) | |
| High school/general educational development | 37% (11) | 38% (11) | |
| Some college/trade school | 33% (10) | 41% (12) | |
| College degree | 17% (5) | 7% (2) | |
| Postgraduate degree | 7% (2) | 10% (3) | |
| Other | 3% (1) | – | |
| Cigarettes per day, M ± SD | 16.2 ± 7.8 | 16.6 ± 6.6 | 0.59 |
| Range | 5–40 | 4–30 | |
| Self-efficacy to quit itemb | 5.0 ± 2.7 | 4.7 ± 2.7 | 0.59 |
| Range | 0–10 | 0–10 | |
| Contemplation ladder c score, M ± SD | 5.6 ± 2.2 | 5.9 ± 2.1 | 0.61 |
| Range | 0–10 | 1–10 | |
| Low: 0–3 | 17% (5) | 10% (3) | |
| Medium: 4–6 | 50% (15) | 55% (16) | |
| High: 7–10 | 33% (10) | 34% (10) | |
Note. aAll values are percentages with sample sizes in parentheses, except where noted. Because of rounding, not all percentages total 100.
Assessed with the item “How confident are you that you can quit smoking completely in the future regardless of the situation.” Rated on an 11-point scale ranging from 0 = “not at all confident” to 10 = “completely confident” (Ossip-Klein et al., 2000).
The ladder operates as an 11-point Likert scale and is designed to measure a smoker's position on a continuum ranging from having no thoughts of quitting (0) to being engaged in action to change one's smoking behavior (10). From previous work (Zhu et al., 2006), the contemplation ladder scores also were grouped into three categories: low (0–3), medium (4–6), or high (7–10) levels of readiness to quit.