Mechanical Systems Versus Smoking Bans for Secondhand Smoke Control

Willingness to provide support for a quit attempt: A study of partners of smokers

“…Based on past research assessing concern for partner’s health (Ranby et al, 2013), we used two items to assess the extent to which participants reported worry that their partner’s smoking was negatively affecting the partner’s health. Participants rated their partner’s chance of getting a serious smoking-related disease (1 = no chance to 7 = certain to happen ) and extent to which their partner’s own smoking had affected their partner’s health (1 = not at all to 5 = very much ).…”

“…Among pregnant women, individuals partnered with another smoker retrospectively reported receiving less support during a quit attempt than women partnered with nonsmokers (McBride et al, 1998). Another study examined a small group of couples that each contained at least one healthcompromised smoker and found relatively few, if any, effects of individual smoking status on provided support (Rohrbaugh et al, 2009). These studies suggest conflicting findings, with one suggesting that partners offer less support but not explicitly collecting data from partners and the other showing little evidence that smokers provide less support but using a small sample size.…”

“…Relationship quality may also be related to motivation for one's partner to quit, as individuals who are happier in their relationship may be more concerned about their partner's health. One study conducted on partner supportiveness during a quit attempt reported limited evidence that relationship quality was related to provided support during a quit attempt (Rohrbaugh et al, 2009). The authors reported that some correlations approached moderate effect sizes (r of .27), suggesting that the study may have been underpowered to detect statistical significance of the effects due to a small sample size (N = 34 couples).…”

“…Other research on support (e.g. Rohrbaugh et al, 2009) has supplemented use of the PIQ with additional items such as "refuse to let partner smoke in the house." In the present research, we used a measure of general willingness to provide support for a quit attempt as well as responses to the positive and negative PIQ subscales in order to connect the current results with the extant literature.…”

“…Because of this interdependence, actions and beliefs of both partners are likely to affect the extent to which a smoker initiates and succeeds at a quit attempt. For instance, among dual-smoker couples—where both romantic partners smoke—smokers’ beliefs about the effects of smoking on their health are related to their partner’s beliefs about effects of smoking on their own health (Ranby et al, 2013). Furthermore, as noted, support from one’s romantic partner increases the likelihood that a smoker will quit (Cohen and Lichtenstein, 1990; Coppotelli and Orleans, 1985; Mermelstein et al, 1983, 1986).…”