The subjects were smokers who visited one of the
respiratory divisions of the National Hospital Organization
Nagoya Medical Center (NNM), Toyota Memorial Hospital
(TMH), and Shizuoka Saiseikai General Hospital (SSH)
between December 2001 and November 2002. In phase I,
outpatients were arbitrarily allocated into two groups; 1)
self-administered group and doctor’s interview group. In the
former, patients were requested to complete a brief
questionnaire about the smoking behavior (ask) with a
message to quit smoking (advice), intention to quit (assess),
the date of cessation if having the intention (assist), the
acceptance of scheduled mail questionnaire (arrange). In the
latter, patients were questioned and advised about the same
by doctors in charge of their treatment in a face-to-face
manner. A few doctors of each hospital were involved in
this study, but were not recorded in link with the smokers.