The Effects of Beliefs About Smoking and Health on Smoking Cessation

The purpose of this study was to examine whether beliefs of an American sample about smoking and health, as defined by cognitive orientation theory, would determine those smoking cessation program participants who would become abstainers and those who would not. Although the smoking cessation program was not designed to influence the specific kinds of beliefs studied, subscales measuring two of the four types of beliefs differentiated participants who would become abstainers from those who would not. Abstainers tended to have stronger goal beliefs about their desire to quit smoking, and stronger beliefs about the health-related implications of smoking. Participants' beliefs that they could resist an urge to smoke, which implied the use of coping skills, were more important in determining who would abstain from smoking than was their confidence that they could quit smoking, which implied the use of willpower.     

The Influences of Friends' and Parental Smoking on Adolescent Smoking Behavior: The Effects of Time and Prior Smoking1

This research examines the relative importance of parental and friends' influences on adolescents' smoking behavior and changes in the effects of social influences during adolescence. Data were collected at 4 times from 7th to 9th grades. Random-effects ordinal regression models were employed to predict the repeated classification of adolescent smoking status using time effects, prior smoking status, friends' smoking, and parental smoking. In general, the effects of friends' smoking are stronger than those of parental smoking, and these differences increase over time. In addition, friends' smoking has greater effects on nonsmokers than smokers. Separate models for males and females disclose some gender differences. In particular, the effects of friends' smoking are stronger for females than for males, and the increasing trend of friends' influences is more noticeable for females than for males. Models for 4 ethnic groups also suggest differential susceptibility to social influences in different cultures.     

Family Smoking Patterns and Smoking among Eighth and Tenth Grade Students

Les families de fumeurs ont étéétudiées à partir du comportement tabagique d'un grand échantillon représentatif des lycéens des 8* et 10* niveaux du centre de la Floride ( n = 1416). Des analyses multivariées ont révélé que le tabagisme de la mère, du père, de la soeur ou du frère aînés rendait compte de 12% de la variance de la décision de se mettre à fumer. Des analyses de régression multiple ont montré qu'une grande soeur fumeuse expliquait la plus grande part de la variance des fumeurs, suivie par la mère et par le père. L'influence du frère aîné n'est pas significative. La famille n'est pas significativement liée au maintien du tabagisme chez les lycéens.
Family smoking habits were examined as they related to the behaviour of a broad, representative sample of eighth and tenth grade students from central and south-central Florida ( n =1416). Multivariate analyses of variance revealed that 12% of the variance for smoking initiation (smoker) was accounted for by the smoking habits of mother, father, older sister, and older brother. Multiple regression analyses showed that older sister's smoking accounted for the greatest independent proportion of smoker variance, followed by mother's and father's smoking. Older brother's smoking habits did not contribute significant unique variance. Family smoking habits were not significantly related to the maintenance of students' smoking behaviour.     

吉林省医务人员吸烟现况及知识态度分析

为了更好地了解吉林省医务人员的吸烟状况,为进一步开展控烟工作提供科学依据,对吉林省50家医疗机构的3787名医务人员进行问卷调查,调查结果显示,男性医务人员吸烟率较高；医务人员对烟草危害认识不全面,控烟意识较为薄弱.应加强对医务人员烟害知识等方面的培训,以改变其吸烟行为、提高控烟责任意识.     

Resisting Gendered Smoking Pressures: Critical Consciousness as a Correlate of Women's Smoking Status

Gender is one of the social structures, along with social class and ethnicity, that shapes women's smoking behaviors. We examined how different responses to gender pressures (internalization and resistance) relate to smoking. We analyzed data from a national random digit dial survey of 945 women and found that never smokers scored high on resistance to gender pressure (indicated by high scores on feminist consciousness) and on education and Body Mass Index; current smokers had the reverse pattern. Ex-smokers scored high on one measure of resistance (advertising skepticism) and on two measures of internalization (embodied femininity and weight concern); they were also likely to have high household income and to be European American. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for smoking cessation programs and antismoking campaigns.     

Smoking and academic performance

Smokers and nonsmokers were compared on three aspects of academic achievement. Although exactly the same percentage of smokers and nonsmokers passed the first-year university examination, smokers obtained significantly higher marks. Similarly, smokers achieved significantly higher marks in their final year examinations in comparison with nonsmokers. Finally, a comparison of the tutorial essay marks of the smokers and nonsmokers again showed that smokers obtained significantly higher marks than nonsmokers. These data are consistent with the idea that ambitious students adopt smoking in the belief that it will help them study and sustain concentration.     

Smoking cessation and severity of disease: the Coronary Artery Smoking Intervention Study.

We tested the effectiveness of an individually delivered behavioral multicomponent smoking intervention (SI) against offering advice only (AO) to 267 patients after coronary arteriography. After 6 months, 51% of AO patients and 62% of SI patients reported abstinence. Validated rates were 34% and 45% for AO and SI patients, respectively. Logistic regression analyses, controlling for severity of illness, stage of change, and self-efficacy, among other variables, showed that, at 6 months, the SI had the most effect for patients with more severe coronary artery disease (CAD) who had been admitted with a myocardial infarction (95% confidence interval = 2.05, 124.85). At 12 months, only severity of disease mediated SI effects (95% confidence interval = 3.10, 58.00). Similar results were seen for cotinine-validated cessation. This study confirms the effectiveness of individually administered SI for more seriously ill patients with CAD and raises questions as to how to better intervene with those individuals with less severe disease.     

Preventing Adolescent Cigarette Smoking

Recent studies have supported the efficacy of approaches to smoking prevention that focus primary attention on social and psychological factors implicated in initiation of adolescent cigarette smoking. This article reports first year data from a large-scale smoking prevention study conducted within three geographic regions of New York State. The sample consists of 5,954 seventh graders from 56 middle/junior high schools. Schools were randomly assigned to (1) receive the Life Skills Training (LST) prevention program with a one-day teacher training workshop; (2) receive the LST prevention program with teacher training provided by video tape; or (3) serve as a comparison group. This study was designed to further test the efficacy of this type of smoking prevention program and to compare the relative effectiveness of two different types of provider training in an effort to learn more about the potential effectiveness of this prevention strategy when implemented under "real world" conditions. Pretest and posttest data were collected by questionnaire concerning self-reported tobacco use and several hypothesized mediating variables. Results indicate that the prevention program significantly impacted on several hypothesized mediating variables in a direction consistent with non-smoking. Within one region, the students in both experimental conditions reported significantly less current cigarette smoking and reported themselves less likely to smoke in the future than the students in the control condition.     

Smoking: A Jewish view

The issue of smoking and Jewish law is explored. After the dangers from smoking are cited, various precedents in Jewish law are presented as the basis for confronting the matter of smoking. Arguments are suggested for strictly prohibiting smoking. The matter of the effects of smoking on the non-smoker is the subject of much research, and the dangers posed to the innocent bystanders are an added dimension pointing to the hazards of smoking and therefore indicating that it should be prohibited.Rabbi Dr. Reuven P. Bulka is editor of theJournal of Psychology and Judaism, published by Human Sciences Press for the Center for the Study of Psychology and Judaism in Ottawa, Canada.     

Smoking and Type A behaviour

This study examines the relationship between Type A behaviour and smoking. Data were gathered from a random sample of 100 undergraduate male daily smokers, with a mean age of 21.2 years (SD = 2.72), using the Type A Behaviour Scale (Bortner and Rosenman, 1967). Results reveal that Type A smokers are heavier daily consumers of cigarettes than Type B smokers (t = 2.90, p less than 0.01). The observed relationship between smoking and Type A behaviour remains significant even when the influence of aggression in partialled out. The need to further investigate the interplay of genetic and non-genetic predispositions, and smoking in the incidence of coronary heart diseases (CHD) is suggested.     

Chronic Smoking and Emotionality1

Self-report data were gathered on the chronic emotionality of smokers and nonsmokers in a number of samples. The results were discussed relative to the literature on sociopathy and recent studies that found smokers to be more emotional than nonsmokers. It was argued that an S's own emotional feelings must be distinguished from the behavioral observations of others, and that the smoking habit might well lead to a generally lowered level of felt emotionality.     

Smoking cessation among self-quitters.

We examined cessation among 630 smokers who quit abruptly on their own. Continuous, complete abstinence rates were 33% at 2 days, 24% at 7 days, 22% at 14 days, 19% at 1 month, 11% at 3 months, 8% at 6 months postcessation, and 3% at 6 months with biochemical verification. Slipping (smoking an average of less than 1 cigarette/day) was common (9% to 15% of subjects) and was a strong predictor of relapse; however, 23% of long-term abstainers slipped at some point. These results challenge beliefs that most smokers can initially stop smoking and that most relapse occurs later on postcessation.     

青少年个性特征、最要好同伴吸烟行为与青少年吸烟行为的关系

本研究旨在探讨最要好同伴吸烟、青少年个性特征与青少年吸烟行为的关系.对北京市一所普通中学和一所重点中学的1042名初一至高三学生进行问卷调查,让被试自我报告他们和最要好同伴的吸烟行为,以及他们的个性特点.结果表明:(1)吸烟和不吸烟的青少年在遵从动机、自我效能感上存在着显著的差异.与不吸烟青少年相比,吸烟的青少年表现出更高的遵从动机和更低的自我效能感;(2)青少年的遵从动机、自我效能感与最要好同伴吸烟行为间存在显著关系.遵从动机高、自我效能感低的青少年,其最要好同伴吸烟率要显著地高于遵从动机低、自我效能感高的青少年;(3)最要好同伴吸烟行为与青少年吸烟行为间存在极其显著的相关;(4)最要好同伴吸烟行为既对青少年吸烟行为产生直接作用,又通过自我效能感、遵从动机对青少年吸烟行为产生间接影响.但最要好同伴吸烟行为对青少年吸烟行为的直接作用要大于间接作用.     

Cigarette Smoking and Panic Psychopathology

ABSTRACT— The present paper summarizes empirical evidence suggesting that smoking and panic problems often co-occur; that smoking is a risk factor for, and may serve to maintain, panic attacks and panic disorder; and that premorbid panic-specific vulnerability variables and full-blown panic problems are related to coping-oriented smoking motives and perhaps to the maintenance of smoking behavior. An integrative model is offered to stimulate further work on this topic, followed by future directions for research.     

Gender Differences in Smoking Cessation

In recent years researchers have paid particularly close attention to factors that might differentially influence smoking cessation outcomes in men and women. The present paper reviews empirical findings on gender differences in smoking cessation with focus on 1) nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), 2) depression and anxiety factors, 3) post-cessation weight gain and body-shape concerns, 4) post-cessation withdrawal, and 5) the importance of social support during smoking cessation. The findings call for research to examine the effects of 1) booster sessions following the discontinuation of NRT, 2) depression-prevention interventions for smokers with a history of depression, 3) strategies to prevent weight gain and reduce concerns about weight gain, 4) initiating treatment early in the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle, and 5) social support variables in promoting or hindering smoking cessation success.