Identification and recruitment of low-income pregnant smokers: who are we missing?
Extensive research has demonstrated the health consequences of smoking during pregnancy for both the mother and child. The majority of women, however, continue to smoke throughout the pregnancy and, of those who do quit, the majority return to smoking during the pregnancy or shortly after delivering the child. To best address this important public health problem, three critical goals must be accomplished: (1) development of effective interventions to help women quit smoking during pregnancy; (2) development of effective interventions to help women stay smoke-free during and after pregnancy; and (3) identification of effective methods of reaching women who smoke during pregnancy. Recruitment is the first window of opportunity to maximize our public health impact with pregnant women. Effective recruitment of women across all stages of change is needed, including both preaction stages and action stages. The current article examines the smoking habits of a large sample of low-income pregnant women. It compares those who enrolled in an intervention trial with those who did not enroll on a number of sociodemographic and individual characteristics, smoking patterns, and stage of change. The participants included 2280 pregnant women. Significant differences were found between enrollment groups on a number of variables, including stage of change [chi(2)(4)=54.74, P<.001], gestational age [t(955)=11.93, P<.001], and multiple smoking pattern variables (P<.001). In addition, a trend was found for ethnicity [chi(2)(5)=11.15, P<.05]. The findings of this study may help guide the development of enhanced recruitment strategies to expand our reach and thus our impact in this special population of smokers.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008425:Maternal Behavior; D009042:Motivation; D018579:Patient Selection; D011203:Poverty; D011247:Pregnancy / Q000523:psychology*; D011295:Prenatal Care / Q000379:methods; D012907:Smoking; D016540:Smoking Cessation