Conversation As a Function of Smokers' Stages of Change

Theoretical Background and research questions/hypothesis:  Stages of change (Prochaska, 1994), in the context of smoking cessation, is a variable frequently used to assess how ready and willing one is to quit smoking or using tobacco. Participants are asked to report whether or not they are currently trying to quit, and if not, whether they have plans to quit sometime in the future. As one would expect, likelihood to quit smoking in the future shows a strong relationship to the level in which one resides on the stages of change variable. At any point in time, only a minority of populations at risk are prepared to take action on their problem behaviors. For smoking behaviors, generally only 10% to 20% of current smokers are ready to take action in the next 30 days (Prochaska et al., 1992). To help entire populations of people at risk, we must discover more about how people progress through the stages of change.  Research by Hornik and Yanovitsky (2003) suggests stimulating interpersonal communication through a health media communication campaign may help people find normative support for health behaviors and in turn increase intention to quit smoking. They argue that through stimulating discussion of health issues within social networks, people may find like-minded others who help validate their existing views and provide support for quitting behaviors, leading to a progression to a more advanced stage of intention to quit. RQ 1: Does conversation about the negative consequences of smoking vary by the degree to which one intends to quit? 

Methods:  The present research uses data collected through Knowledge Networks as part of an ongoing, multi-wave evaluation of ClearWay Minnesota^SM’s tobacco control media campaign.

Results:  Results from a one-way ANOVA suggest that the frequency of conversation about the negative consequences of smoking increased at each stage on the stages of change variable. Post hoc comparisons using the Fisher’s LSD test showed significant differences between each of the first three stages “currently planning to quit”, “plan to quit in the next 30 days”, “plan to quit within the next 6 months” and the last two stages “planning to quit sometime in the future, but not in the next 6 months” and “no plans to quit.” Additionally, there was a significant difference between “plan to quit sometime in the future, but not in the next 6 months” and “no plans to quit” on frequency of talking about negative consequences of smoking.

Conclusions:  Clearly, increasing a target population’s intention to quit is a goal of almost all tobacco cessation campaigns. This finding suggests that stimulating interpersonal communication, aside from simply diffusing campaign information, may actually lead directly to increasing the proportion of those intending to quit. 

Implications for research and/or practice:  This is a critical finding for health practitioners. If health campaigns can effectively stimulate conversation, they may in fact be increasing intention to quit at the same time. Health campaigns interested in stimulating conversation should assess the relationship between reported conversation and intention to quit using tobacco.