Skip to main content
. 2019 Jan 9;2019(1):CD001118. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD001118.pub4

Lichtenstein 2000.

Methods Setting: community, USA
 Recruitment: via electric utility mailing to identify households with smokers and low radon concentrations
Participants 1006 smokers in 714 households, average cpd 20
Interventions No face‐to‐face contact
 ∙ Standard Environmental Protection Agency leaflet on risks of radon
 ∙ Pamphlet highlighting risk of smoking in low concentrations of radon, with tips for quitting, or not smoking indoors
 ∙ Second bullet above plus up to 2 brief proactive telephone calls.
 All groups received standard letter with radon results
Outcomes Abstinence at 12 months, sustained at 3 months and 12 months
 Validation: none
Notes 2 vs 1, self‐help vs other control
3 contributes to telephone counselling review (Stead 2013b)
 Cluster‐randomisation; 54% of smokers lived with another smoker
Intraclass correlation for sustained abstinence was .010; analyses did not correct for this
Risk of bias
Bias Authors' judgement Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias) Unclear risk Randomised by household; method not described
Allocation concealment (selection bias) Unclear risk No details given
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) 
 All outcomes Low risk Self‐reported outcomes from participants not blinded to treatment condition, but the arms included in this analysis had similar levels of intensity with no personal contact, so differential misreport judged unlikely
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) 
 All outcomes Low risk 80% of households reached at 3 months and 12 months; no difference across conditions
Missing treated as smoking