Viswesvaran and Schmidt 1992: smoking-cessation meta-analysis

Viswesvaran C, Schmidt FL. A meta-analytic comparison of the effectiveness of smoking cessation methods. Journal of Applied Psychology. 1992;77(4):554–574. DOI 10.1037/0021-9010.77.4.554.

The paper is real. The use of it as a “hypnosis wins” poster is the problem.

Key evidence

The authors cumulated 633 studies (71,806 people) that reported a proportion of successful quits across many methods, not hypnosis alone. They estimated that, on average, 6.4% of smokers in available control groups quit with no intervention, and argued that this baseline should be subtracted to get a net rate.

That design is a methods comparison of reported quit rates. It is not the same object as Cochrane 2019, which kept randomised trials with at least six months of follow-up and still could not show a clear hypnotherapy advantage.

This wiki therefore treats Viswesvaran and Schmidt as historical context, Grade C, and treats Cochrane as the honest benchmark. See the hub.

Limitations

Uncontrolled series and unverified abstinence inflate older pooled rates. Popular articles that called hypnosis “the most effective method” from this paper are journalism, not a replacement RCT.

What we don't know yet

Re-running 1992’s inclusion rules on today’s literature would be a new paper. It would still not outrank an updated Cochrane review.

This page is informational only. It is not personal medical advice.