While up to 45% of women quit smoking during pregnancy, nearly 80% return to smoking within a year after delivery. Current interventions to prevent this return have had limited success. The aim of this study was to use the Theory of Planned Behavior to understand the factors influencing intention to resume smoking postpartum, specifically focusing on the role of subjective norms, or the social environment. During the postpartum hospital stay, we conducted in-depth, individual interviews with 24 women who had quit smoking during pregnancy. Over 300 pages of transcripts were analyzed by all four investigators using qualitative methods to identify common themes facilitated by Atlas.ti software. Respondents were predominately white (63%) and primipara (54%) with a mean age of 26. When reflecting on their experiences of being a smoker, the women emphasized the importance of their social relationships. Common themes were: 1) virtually all were embedded in large, complex social networks of smokers (partners, family, friends, co-workers) that influenced their smoking behavior, 2) the subjective norm (the perceived social pressure) for many women was that, while smoking during pregnancy is unacceptable, smoking after pregnancy is tolerable, and 3) partners were particularly influential on these womens smoking behaviors. In conclusion, we found that social environment played a large role in these women's past smoking behavior and future intentions. Thus, this factor may continue to influence their behavior after pregnancy. Further research is needed to establish the generalizability of these findings; however, our study suggests that the influence of the social environment should be integrated into postpartum smoking interventions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:YALE_med/oai:ymtdl.med.yale.edu:etd-02252010-185659 |
| Date | 02 August 2010 |
| Creators | Nguyen, Stephanie Ngoc Tu |
| Contributors | Eve R. Colson, Isabelle Von Kohorn, Dena Schulman-Green |
| Publisher | Yale University |
| Source Sets | Yale Medical student MD Thesis |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://ymtdl.med.yale.edu/theses/available/etd-02252010-185659/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby grant to the Yale School of Medicine the non-exclusive license to photocopy, archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my print and electronic thesis, in whole or in part, in all forms of media. <p> I agree that the Yale School of Medicine may electronically store, copy or translate my thesis to any medium or format for the purpose of preservation and accessibility. The Yale School of Medicine is not under obligation to reproduce or display my thesis in the same format in which it was originally deposited. <p> I retain all ownership rights to the thesis, including but not limited to the right to use in future works (such as articles and books) all or part of this thesis. |
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