title: Changes over time in weight concerns among women smokers engaged in the cessation process.
abstract: Weight concerns have been reported by women smokers to be barriers to initial cessation and to sustained abstinence. This article examines the temporal patterns of weight concerns and self-efficacy for cessation among three groups of women smokers: non-quitters, short-term quitters, and long-term quitters. Subjects were 417 women aged 20-64 who had participated in a randomized smoking cessation intervention trial. Over the twelve-month follow-up, long-term quitters reported greater increases in weight gain, pain and worry related to weight, dieting behaviors, and self-efficacy for maintaining cessation in eating-related situations compared to non-quitters and short-term quitters. In multivariate analyses, increases in pain and worry about weight and in self-efficacy in eating-related situations were significantly associated with sustained abstinence. Cessation-specific weight concerns and dieting were not associated with sustained abstinence. Implications of these results for intervention design are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Center for Health Studies, Group Health Cooperative Puget Sound and University of Washington, Washington, USA.
authors.forename: C M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: McBride
authors.forename: S A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: French
authors.forename: P L
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Pirie
authors.forename: R W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Jeffery