Is advice to stop smoking from a midwife stressful for pregnant women who smoke? Data from a randomised controlled trial

Paul Aveyard, T Lawrence, Emma Croghan, O Evans, Kar Cheng

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

    21 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Background. There are no randomized trials examining whether intensive advice to pregnant smokers is more stressful than standard care. Method. Nine hundred eighteen U.K. women currently smoking on commencing antenatal care were randomized into three arms. Women in Arm A received one episode of brief advice to stop smoking. Women in Arm B were assessed for stage of change and worked through an exercise in self-help manuals on three occasions. Women in Arm C used a 20-min interactive computer program three times in addition to the intervention women in Arm B received. Stress was assessed by the change in score on the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) from baseline to 30 weeks gestation, the month before delivery, and 10 days postpartum. Results. There were small and not significant differences in the changes in PSS between the arms at all outcome times. There was no evidence that the importance women attached to pleasing their midwife by stopping, having failed to quit, or nulliparity modified the effect of intensive advice on change in stress levels. Conclusions. Intensive advice to stop smoking was not associated with increases in stress. Advice and support for pregnant women to stop smoking should be given without fear of causing stress. (c) 2004 The Institute For Cancer Prevention and Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)575-582
    Number of pages8
    JournalPreventive Medicine
    Volume40
    Issue number5
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2005

    Keywords

    • randomized controlled trial
    • smoking cessation
    • pregnancy
    • stress

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