Quit Smoking Strategies for Stress Reduction Could be More Effective for Women – ScienceDaily

According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, women are 31% less likely to successfully quit smoking, in part because it is thought that nicotine replacement therapy is more effective in male smokers. In contrast, laboratory studies suggest that women are more likely to smoke when stressed. However, this finding has not been clearly replicated in a real context.

In an article published online by Research on nicotine and tobacco, researchers at the University of Medicine South Carolina (MUSC) report the results of a real-world study conducted among 177 smokers. In the study, smokers had more stress and lack of energy than smokers after experiencing signs of stress. Stress signals are stress-inducing images, similar to images of violence or war. However, no badual difference related to the state of need was found after viewing smoking signals provided by a cell phone. Smoking cues are images suggesting smoking behavior, such as a picture of a cigarette or a person who smokes.

These results suggest that improving smoking cessation outcomes in women may require specific bad-relinquishment strategies.

"We know that all existing treatments are not as effective for men as they are for women," says Rachel L. Tomko, Ph.D., badistant professor in MUSC's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and first author of l & # 39; section. "It may be because they find different aspects of smoking gratifying and relieving, and that there are different things that keep their smoking." Our findings suggest that stress may be one thing that forces women to smoke more than men. "

"This research helps us understand what motivates smoking and what can really create barriers to treatment that we did not expect to be there," says Kevin M. Gray, MD, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. MUSC and lead author. on the article. "If smoking was nicotine only, everyone would respond nicely to nicotine replacement therapy, but it's more complex and nuanced than that, the more we can do it, the better we can create the right kind of treatment for every nicotine." individual. "

Participants in the real-world study viewed eight images a day (four sets of two) for two weeks. These included smoking cues, stress signals, and neutral images. Whenever they received a pair of pictures, they filled out a form badessing their level of stress, negative emotions and senseless desire before viewing the pictures (their basic value) and after each picture. They also tracked the number of cigarettes they smoked each day.

These data were recorded via a smartphone app (status / post, Infinite Arms, Charleston, South Carolina) that integrates with the RedCap search tool (Vanderbilt University). This RedCap data was hosted by the South Carolina Clinical and Translational Institute, an NIH clinical research institute. and hub of the Translator Science Awards Program.

As we have already noted, the smokers reported having more stress, negative emotions and being thirsty after watching the stress signals, but did not smoke them, than the smokers. Regardless of gender, smokers with higher baseline levels felt more stress, negative emotions and cravings after visualizing stress signals. Since women smoke more in response to stress and environmental factors, their smoking habits will vary more than men's. However, the MUSC team found no difference in the number of cigarettes smoked per day for smokers and smokers.

"Fortunately, showing stress to smokers and indicating it did not result in an overall increase in the number of cigarettes smoked," said Tomko. "This is probably due to the fact that smokers are already exposed to similar images on a daily basis, however, it is surprising that women have not seen more daily fluctuations in their number of cigarettes than men. that minor stressors women smoke a cigarette a little earlier than they would have done otherwise, but this does not affect the overall smoking rate.We hope to test it in future research . "

Gray and Tomko plan, along with other MUSC colleagues, to badyze the daily data collected on hormone levels during the study to explain how hormones affect stress and smoking. With the help of a special lighter capable of recording time, they will also conduct studies to determine the time required for different smokers to light up after a stress. This could, for example, provide more evidence that stress leads to smoking in women. More generally, they will continue to identify gender and other differences that affect how smokers respond to treatment and use this knowledge to improve cessation therapies.

"The very good news – and we can say it both as clinicians and researchers – is that we have effective treatments to stop smoking," Gray said. "The difficult news is that even with effective treatments, most smokers are still trying to quit.We can try to make improvements using the direct instrument of a However, I think we should also try to think about what is different between individuals – whether it's gender or other characteristics – and if these differences help us better adapt our treatments. "