Offering smokers a taster session at an NHS (National Health Service) Stop Smoking Service and explaining their personal risk of developing smoking-related diseases doubles their likelihood of attending a stop smoking course, according to a study in The Lancet.

NHS Stop Smoking Services combine specialist support with prescribed medication, and are an effective way of helping people to stop smoking. However, attendance is low and only around one in 20 (less than 5%) smokers use the service each year.

In the trial, smokers were either given a routine referral letter or a new personalised letter explaining their individual risk of smoking-related diseases and offering them a stop smoking taster session.

The personalised letter included the person's individual risk of serious illness if they continued to smoke, rating them as being at high, very high or extremely high risk compared to people who used to or never smoked. It also included information about how much their risk would reduce if they quit smoking immediately.     

Overall smokers found the taster sessions helpful and interesting. Two-thirds of participants found the letter useful and very few found it antagonistic, depressing or anxiety-inducing, suggesting that using risk information while offering support was an appropriate way to target smokers.