Dataset Information

Written Advice Given by African American Smokers to Their Peers: Qualitative Study of Motivational Messages.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Although African Americans have the lowest rates of smoking onset and progression to daily smoking, they are less likely to achieve long-term cessation. Interventions tailored to promote use of cessation resources in African American individuals who smoke are needed. In our past work, we demonstrated the effectiveness of a technology-assisted peer-written message intervention for increasing smoking cessation in non-Hispanic White smokers. In this formative study, we have adapted this intervention to be specific for African American smokers.

Objective

We aimed to report on the qualitative analysis of messages written by African American current and former smokers for their peers in response to hypothetical scenarios of smokers facing cessation challenges.

Methods

We recruited African American adult current and former smokers (n=41) via ResearchMatch between April 2017 and November 2017. We asked participants to write motivational messages for their peers in response to smoking-related hypothetical scenarios. We also collected data on sociodemographic factors and smoking characteristics. Thematic analysis was conducted to identify cessation strategies suggested by the study participants.

Results

Among the study participants, 60% (25/41) were female. Additionally, more than half (23/41, 56%) were thinking about quitting, 29% (12/41) had set a quit date, and 27% (11/41) had used electronic cigarettes in the past 30 days. Themes derived from the qualitative analysis of peer-written messages were (1) behavioral strategies, (2) seeking help, (3) improvements in quality of life, (4) attitudes and expectations, and (5) mindfulness/religious or spiritual practices. Under the behavioral strategies theme, distraction strategies were the most frequently suggested strategies (referenced 84 times in the 318 messages), followed by use of evidence-based treatments/cessation strategies. Within the seeking help theme, subthemes included seeking help or support from family/friends or close social networks (referenced 56 times) and health care professionals (referenced 22 times). The most frequent subthemes that emerged from improvements in the quality of life theme included improving one's health (referenced 22 times) and quality of life (referenced 21 times). Subthemes that emerged from the attitude and expectations theme included practicing positive self-talk (referenced 27 times), autonomy/independence from the smoking habit (referenced six times), and financial cost of smoking (referenced five times). The two subthemes that emerged from the mindfulness/religious or spiritual practices theme were use of self-awareness techniques (referenced 36 times) and religious or spiritual practices to cope (referenced 13 times).

Conclusions

Our approach to adapt a prior peer-message intervention to African American smokers yielded a set of evidence-based messages that may be suitable for smokers at all phases of motivation to quit (ready to quit or not ready to quit). In future research, we plan to assess the impact of texting these messages to African American smokers in a smoking cessation trial.

SUBMITTER: Nagawa CS

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8128361 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundTailored, web-assisted interventions can reach many smokers. Content from other smokers (peers) through crowdsourcing could enhance relevance.PurposeTo evaluate whether peers can generate tailored messages encouraging other smokers to use a web-assisted tobacco intervention (Decide2Quit.org).MethodsPhase 1: In 2009, smokers wrote messages in response to scenarios for peer advice. These smoker-to-smoker (S2S) messages were coded to identify themes. Phase 2: resulting S2S messages, and comparison expert messages, were then e-mailed to newly registered smokers. In 2012, subsequent Decide2Quit.org visits following S2S or expert-written e-mails were compared.ResultsPhase 1: a total of 39 smokers produced 2886 messages (message themes: attitudes and expectations, improvements in quality of life, seeking help, and behavioral strategies). For not-ready-to-quit scenarios, S2S messages focused more on expectations around a quit attempt and how quitting would change an individual's quality of life. In contrast, for ready-to-quit scenarios, S2S messages focused on behavioral strategies for quitting. Phase 2: In multivariable analysis, S2S messages were more likely to generate a return visit (OR=2.03, 95% CI=1.74, 2.35), compared to expert messages. A significant effect modification of this association was found, by time-from-registration and message codes (both interaction terms p<0.01). In stratified analyses, S2S codes that were related more to "social" and "real-life" aspects of smoking were driving the main association of S2S and increased return visits.ConclusionsS2S peer messages that increased longitudinal engagement in a web-assisted tobacco intervention were successfully collected and delivered. S2S messages expanded beyond the biomedical model to enhance relevance of messages.Trial registrationThis study is registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov NCT00797628 (web-delivered provider intervention for tobacco control [QUIT-PRIMO]) and NCT01108432 (DPBRN Hygienists Internet Quality Improvement in Tobacco Cessation [HiQuit]).

Project description:BACKGROUND:Motivational Interviewing (MI), Brief Advice (BA) and Health Education (HE) are established smoking cessation induction methods for smokers with low desire to quit. Although randomized controlled trials (RCT's) have been frequently used to assess these interventions the temporal efficacy and effectiveness of these interventions have been poorly elaborated. The present work endeavors to fill the gap by considering the full range of possible motivational outcomes for all of the participants. METHODS:As a two-step process, Markov Chain (MC) and Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) models were successively employed to examine the temporal efficacy and effectiveness of these interventions by computing the gradual movements of participants from an initial stage of unmotivated smoker to stages of increased motivation to quit and cessation. Specifically, in our re-analysis of data from the RCT we examined the proportion of participants in 4 stages of readiness to quit (unmotivated, undecided, motivated, former smokers) over 6 months, across treatment groups [MI (n?=?87), BA (n?=?43) and HE (n?=?91)]. RESULTS:Although HE had greater efficacy compared to MI and BA (i.e., the highest smoking cessation rates), it had lower effectiveness at certain time points. This was due to the fact that HE had the greatest proportion of motivated smokers who quit smoking but simultaneously a large proportion of the motivated smokers became unmotivated to quit. The effectiveness of HE dropped substantially in weeks 3-12 and remained below the effectiveness of BA from week 12 onward. The 2-year ODE model projections show that the prevalence of motivated smokers in HE group may fall below 5%. The prevalence of HE former smokers can reach an equilibrium of 26%, where the prevalence of both BA and MI former smokers exceeds this equilibrium. CONCLUSIONS:The methodology proposed in this paper strongly benefits from the capabilities of both MC and ODE modeling approaches, in the event of low observations over the time. Particularly, the temporal population sizes are first estimated by the MC model. Then they are used to parametrize the ODE model and predict future values. The methodology enabes us to determine and compare the temporal efficacy and effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions, yielding predictive and analytic insights related to temporal characteristics and capabilities of these interventions during the study period and beyond. TRIAL REGISTRATION:Testing Counseling Styles to Motivate Smokers to Quit, NCT01188018 , (July 4, 2012). This study is registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov NCT01188018.