• provide suggestions for alternative ("cool") healthier pursuits
•  encourage young people to keep trying to give up

Several respondents thought that a booklet such as I Quit! was ideal to be
incorporated into strategies that embodied the above principles.

What mediators would like to see on a teen cessation website

Health professionals, teachers and youth workers thought that everything that was
in I Quit! the booklet should be on a website, with the addition of more interactive
material (quizzes, puzzles, a chat line or problem page), and perhaps extra
information about peer pressure, and information about the tobacco companies
(their marketing and advertising techniques and profits, for example). Several
thought that a calculator/ready reckoner should feature prominently, as this
section in the booklet attracted all young people they'd used it with.

Some said they hoped that the site would be carefully monitored and updated,
with scope to add local information and service details. They all thought the site
should be positive in attitude. Some thought this could be achieved by
incorporating real-life success stories and role-model quotes. Several said it should
be "fun".

THE VIEWS OF

YOUNG PEOPLE WHO REVIEWED

I QUIT!

The majority of young people who reviewed I Quit! were smokers, though a
handful were not. They smoked from 20 to 100 cigarettes a week, the average
across the age group (from 14-18) being 40. The younger ones tended to smoke less
than the older ones. A few said they smoked 10 or less a week and, of these, a
couple did not consider themselves to be smokers - they ticked the non-smoker
box.

Virtually all the smokers said that they would like to give up, but very few had
ever, or seriously, tried to do so. The members of one discussion group (2 girls, 2
boys), all close friends, said they had given up in the past but had taken it up
again. They seemed to view it as inevitable that were they to give up again, they
would also take it up again. None of the interviewees were participants in
cessation groups. (It would have been useful to interview such a group but it was
not possible to set up for this evaluation.)

The age of the respondent made little difference except in one respect: some of
the younger respondents (14, 15 year-olds) thought the booklet was childish in
places. There were no discernible differences in responses to the booklet between
girls and boys.