The effectiveness of an integrated multicomponent program for adolescent smoking cessation in Taiwan

• More beneficial results can be obtained when an intervention is designed based on a customized approach and evidence.
• An integrated intervention for student smokers at vocational high schools can effectively motivate them to quit smoking.
• The integrated intervention yielded tobacco abstinence at 4 months.
• The quitting rates obtained from objective cotinine tests were more conservative than those obtained from subjective self-reports.

If adolescents do not receive appropriate assistance in quitting smoking, they are highly likely to become regular smokers when they enter adulthood. Thus, an effective smoking-cessation program is required. A program was designed based on both the smoking-cessation barriers reported by students and effective strategies derived from the literature. We assigned 143 student smokers from 6 vocational high schools to intervention (n = 78) and comparison groups (n = 65). Data were collected at the baseline, the end of the program, and 1- and 4-month follow-up time points. For the intervention group, the smoking-abstinence rates confirmed using the urine cotinine test were 22.73% at the end of the program and 20.75% at the 4-month follow-up point. Days smoked in the past month, number of cigarettes smoked per day, and the Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence score of the intervention group decreased at all of the time points. The group differences in these variables were statistically significant; the magnitude of effect sizes ranged from 0.44 to 0.95. Multicomponent programs addressing smoking-cessation barriers that students encounter can help adolescents quit smoking.