Abstract
Weight concerns have been reported by women smokers to be barriers to initial cessation and to sustained abstinence. This article examines the temporal patterns of weight concerns and self-efficacy for cessation among three groups of women smokers: non-quitters, short-term quitters, and long-term quitters. Subjects were 417 women aged 20–64 who had participated in a randomized smoking cessation intervention trial. Over the twelve-month follow-up, long-term quitters reported greater increases in weight gain, pain and worry related to weight, dieting behaviors, and self-efficacy for maintaining cessation in eating-related situations compared to non-quitters and short-term quitters. In multivariate analyses, increases in pain and worry about weight and in self-efficacy in eating-related situations were significantly associated with sustained abstinence. Cessation-specific weight concerns and dieting were not associated with sustained abstinence. Implications of these results for intervention design are discussed.
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McBride, C.M., French, S.A., Pirie, P.L. et al. Changes over time in weight concerns among women smokers engaged in the cessation process. Ann Behav Med 18, 273–279 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02895289
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02895289