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Chronic Pain Status, Nicotine Withdrawal, and Expectancies for Smoking Cessation Among Lighter Smokers

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Annals of Behavioral Medicine

Abstract

Background

Chronic pain and tobacco smoking are both highly prevalent and comorbid conditions, and chronic pain may pose a barrier to smoking cessation.

Purpose

The objective of this study was to test associations between chronic pain status and several smoking-related factors that have previously been shown to predict cessation outcomes.

Method

Daily smokers (N = 205) were recruited from the general population to complete an online survey of pain and tobacco smoking.

Results

Results indicated that smokers with chronic pain (vs. no chronic pain) consumed more cigarettes per day, scored higher on an established measure of tobacco dependence, reported having less confidence in their ability to quit, and endorsed expectations for experiencing greater difficulty and more severe nicotine withdrawal during future cessation attempts. Mediation analyses further indicated that the inverse association between chronic pain and abstinence self-efficacy was indirectly influenced by past cessation failures.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that individuals with chronic pain may constitute an important subgroup of tobacco smokers who tend to experience lower confidence and greater difficulty when attempting to quit. Future research would benefit from replicating these findings among older and more diverse samples of heavier tobacco smokers, and extending this work to the study of prospective relations between chronic pain status and cessation-relevant processes/outcomes over the course of a quit attempt.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by NIH Grant Nos. R21DA034285 and R21DA038204 awarded to Joseph W. Ditre, NIDA Grant No. F31DA039628 awarded to Emily L. Zale, and NIH Grant No. 2K05AA16928 awarded to Stephen A. Maisto.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, 13244, USA

    Joseph W. Ditre Ph.D., Jesse D. Kosiba B.A., Emily L. Zale M.S. & Stephen A. Maisto Ph.D

  2. Center for Integrated Healthcare, Syracuse VA Medical Center, Syracuse, NY, USA

    Joseph W. Ditre Ph.D. & Stephen A. Maisto Ph.D

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

    Michael J. Zvolensky Ph.D

  4. University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Michael J. Zvolensky Ph.D

Authors
  1. Joseph W. Ditre Ph.D.
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  2. Jesse D. Kosiba B.A.
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  3. Emily L. Zale M.S.
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  4. Michael J. Zvolensky Ph.D
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  5. Stephen A. Maisto Ph.D
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Correspondence to Joseph W. Ditre Ph.D..

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Conflict of Interest

Authors’ Statement of Conflict of Interest and Adherence to Ethical Standards Authors Ditre, Kosiba, Zale, Zvolensky, and Maisto declare that they have no conflict of interest. All procedures, including the informed consent process, were conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000.

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Ditre, J.W., Kosiba, J.D., Zale, E.L. et al. Chronic Pain Status, Nicotine Withdrawal, and Expectancies for Smoking Cessation Among Lighter Smokers. ann. behav. med. 50, 427–435 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-016-9769-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-016-9769-9

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