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March 21, 2024

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Spring Housing Guide

ChewFree may set you free

Along with being six times more likely to develop oral cancer than a non-user, tobacco users who dip or chew eight to 10 times a day may be receiving the nicotine equivalent of 30 to 40 cigarettes, according to the Academy of General Dentistry.

Anyone ready to quit yet?

If so, chewers and dippers can now create their own quit plan at www.ChewFree.com, a free self-help program offered as part of a research study by Oregon Research Institute, which is funded by the National Cancer Institute.

Launched in May 2004, the Web site is actually a random clinical trial that offers two methods of delivering a tobacco cessation program.

After signing up and completing an initial assessment, participants will be assigned at random to one of two groups. The first is an interactive program that offers social support, while the second is a basic non-interactive program that provides a complete guide to quitting smokeless tobacco.

The research study’s goal is to determine if adding the social support to a more basic smokeless tobacco program will improve the success rate.

Participants who fall into the basic program after signing up will not totally miss out on the benefits of the interactive program. Those in the basic program are able to switch over after completing their first six months.

The most attractive aspect of the program is its ability to create an effective quit plan that fits each person’s individual needs rather than a “one size fits all” style, according to ChewFree.com’s Coordinator Laura Akers.

“We help people assess their level of dependence, plan for withdrawal symptoms, prepare for tough situations … and find more effective ways to meet the needs in their lives that they’ve used tobacco for in the past,” Akers said.

The initial goals for ChewFree.com’s study are already within reach, Akers said. In seven months the program has already enrolled 1,243 participants, which is more than halfway towards their goal of 2,400.

While Oregon Research Institute will not be analyzing the data until the study has been completed, Akers said that the success of initial returns has been encouraging.

“About half of the first 100 or so people who have checked back with us six months later say they’ve been able to quit,” Akers said. “This would be a remarkable rate of success. Most tobacco cessation programs are considered successful if 20 to 30 percent of participants are able to quit and stay quit.” Akers added that only about 3 to 5 percent of people who try to quit on their own are successful in any given year.

As a certified Chemical Dependency Counselor at Student Health Services, Carrie Belair has seen her share of tobacco cessation programs. After looking over both the interactive and basic programs of ChewFree.com, Belair likes what she’s seen.

“When someone is looking to change behavior, it’s important to assess readiness to change as well as reasons to change,” Belair said. “I think the program did very well in this area.”

Belair also showed an appreciation for some of the more unique features that have been offered to participants.

“I think the message board feature can help someone ask questions and feel supported in their quest to quit,” Belair said. “The cost calculator feature can be very motivational for someone to quit use also.”

Smokeless tobacco use is most common among young adults between 18 and 25 years old, with men being 10 times more likely than women to use, according to the 2000 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.

While studies and surveys have shown that nicotine replacement products like coconut chew and some prescription drugs help cigarette smokers quit, these medications have not yet been proven effective for helping smokeless tobacco users quit. That is why the research of a Web site like ChewFree.com is so important, because it is the first program of its kind for the treatment of smokeless tobacco users, according to Dr. Cathy Backinger, chief of the Tobacco Control Research Branch at NCI.

While ChewFree.com’s cost-free program leaves little room for cash-strapped users to excuse not participating, University student Zach Clark says that the willpower necessary to quit and stay that way will always be the most important ingredient to long-term success.

“There’s always the people that say they’re done, then the next day you see them with a chew in their mouth,” Clark said. “I think it’s more of something that you have to get in your mindset that you’re quitting and you’re going to stick with it.”

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