Abstract
Background: Addressing smoking cessation during pregnancy among Aboriginal women is a national priority under the Closing the Gap campaign. There is a need to measure and report interventions to support Aboriginal women during pregnancy. Aim: To quantitatively assess women's smoking experiences over a 12 week ICAN QUIT in Pregnancy program. Methods: Aboriginal women and/or women expecting an Aboriginal baby reported their smoking experiences through repeated cross-sectional survey at baseline, four weeks, and 12 weeks. Self-reported nicotine dependence measures (heaviness of smoking index, strength of urges and frequency of urges to smoke), intentions to quit smoking, quit attempts, use of nicotine replacement therapy were gathered as well as a carbon-monoxide measure at each time point. Results: Expectant mothers (n = 22) of Aboriginal babies participated from six Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services between November 2016 and July 2017. At 12 weeks women reported (n = 17) low heaviness of smoking index 1.21 with high strength of urges 2.64 and frequency of urges 3.00; 12/13 (92%) reported likely/very likely to quit smoking, made a mean 1.67 number of quit attempts, three women (13.6%) quit smoking (validated); 5/16 (31%) reported using nicotine replacement therapy. Discussion: Participating women made multiple quit attempts demonstrating motivation to quit smoking. Smoking cessation interventions should be tailored to address high strength and frequency of nicotine dependence despite low consumption. Conclusion: Prolonged smoking cessation support is recommended to address physical, behavioural and psychological aspect of smoking. Cessation support should address previous quitting experiences to assess smoking dependence and tailoring of support. Trial registration: Australian and New Zealand Clinicial Trials Registry (Ref #ACTRN12616001603404).
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 300-308 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Women and Birth |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 2020 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:MB is supported by the University of Newcastle and Australian Heart Foundation Indigenous Scholarships (#101555). YBZ is supported by the University of Newcastle and Hunter Cancer Research Alliance PhD scholarship. GG is supported by National Health and Medical Research Council and Cancer Institute New South Wales Early Career Research Fellowships (APP1092085 and 15ECF/I-52). BB is supported by an NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (1063206) and a Faculty of Health and Medicine, University of Newcastle, Faculty of Health and Medicine Gladys M Brawn Career Development Fellowship.
Funding Information:
This work was funded by the University of Newcastle, Hunter Cancer Research Alliance and the New South Wales Ministry of Health. The authors would like to acknowledge and pay their respects to the Aboriginal women who shared experiences in the study. We would also like to acknowledge the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services who partnered with us to pilot the intervention: Pangula Mannamurna Aboriginal Corporation (SA), Riverina Medical and Dental Aboriginal Corporation (NSW), Biripi Aboriginal Corporation Medical Centre (NSW), Tobwabba Aboriginal Medical Service Inc. (NSW) and Wuchopperen Health Service Ltd (Qld). Also the ICAN QUIT in Pregnancy Stakeholders and Community Aboriginal Advisory Group consisting of staff each ACCHS who ensured the appropriate implementation of this pilot study. We would also like to acknowledge Lauren Pollock who worked as a Research Assistant throughout the study and was responsible for the everyday administration of the study.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Authors
Keywords
- Aboriginal health
- Intervention
- Nicotine dependence
- Pregnancy
- Smoking cessation