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Preferences for Smoking Cessation Support from Family and Friends Among Adults with Serious Mental Illness

Psychiatric Quarterly volume 88, pages 701–710 (2017)Cite this article

Abstract

Engaging natural supports may be a promising strategy to promote the use of evidence-based smoking cessation treatment for individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) who smoke. This qualitative study explored preferences for support for quitting from family and friends among individuals with SMI who participated in cessation treatment. Participants were 41 individuals with SMI enrolled in a Medicaid Demonstration Project of smoking cessation at community mental health centers. Open-ended questions asked during a social network interview explored participants’ preferences for more support for quitting smoking from family and friends. The qualitative data was coded and common themes were identified across the dataset. Three primary preferences emerged for smoking cessation support from family members and friends: 1) more practical support for quitting (e.g., financial help with purchasing cessation medications); 2) more emotional support for quitting (e.g., encouraging progress toward quitting); and 3) changing their own smoking behaviors in the presence of participants (e.g., don’t smoke around them or offer them cigarettes). Individuals with SMI who participated in smoking cessation treatment at community mental health centers indicated several ways that family members and friends could support their efforts to quit smoking. Understanding how people with SMI want support from family and friends to quit smoking will inform strategies to leverage these natural resources to promote the use of evidence-based smoking cessation treatment and support smoking abstinence for this population.

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Author information

Affiliations

  1. Centers for Health and Aging, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, 46 Centerra Parkway, Suite 200, Lebanon, NH, 03766, USA

    Kelly A. Aschbrenner, John A. Naslund & Stephen J. Bartels

  2. The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Lebanon, NH, USA

    Kelly A. Aschbrenner, John A. Naslund, Stephen J. Bartels & A. James O’Malley

  3. Department of Psychiatry, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Lebanon, NH, USA

    Kelly A. Aschbrenner, Stephen J. Bartels & Mary F. Brunette

  4. Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Lebanon, NH, USA

    Kelly A. Aschbrenner, Lydia Gill, Stephen J. Bartels & Mary F. Brunette

  5. Department of Community and Family Medicine, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Lebanon, NH, USA

    Stephen J. Bartels

Authors
  1. Kelly A. Aschbrenner
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  2. John A. Naslund
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  3. Lydia Gill
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  4. Stephen J. Bartels
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  5. A. James O’Malley
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  6. Mary F. Brunette
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kelly A. Aschbrenner.

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Conflict of Interest

All authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Funding

This study was funded by The Dartmouth Clinical and Translational Science Institute, under award number UL1TR001086 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Partial support was received from the Health Promotion Research Center at Dartmouth funded by a grant from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Cooperative Agreement Number U48 DP005018). The content is solely the responsibility of the author(s) and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funders.

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Aschbrenner, K.A., Naslund, J.A., Gill, L. et al. Preferences for Smoking Cessation Support from Family and Friends Among Adults with Serious Mental Illness. Psychiatr Q 88, 701–710 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-016-9485-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-016-9485-4

Keywords

  • Serious mental illness
  • Smoking cessation treatment
  • Social networks
  • Social support