Abstinence-Induced Decrements in Attention Predict Outcome in Cigarette Smoking Cessation
Abstract
Cigarette smoking continues to be the leading cause of preventable death in the United States and is associated with economic costs to the individual as well as the society. The majority of smokers report being motivated to quit, however many quit attempts are unsuccessful, even with the use of the best available cessation interventions. Much research has examined psychological processes underlying relapse to smoking. Attention difficulty is a common withdrawal symptom, has been consistently found on subjective and objective measures of attention, and may contribute to smoking relapse. Clarification of the impact of withdrawal-related attention problems on smoking outcomes will help elucidate the underlying cognitive factors to smoking relapse. The present study investigated the association between abstinence-induced attention difficulties and subsequent smoking status in nicotine-dependent smokers (N=193) attempting to quit smoking. Participants were followed from two weeks prior to quit day through four weeks post quit day. Before one pre-quit visit participants smoked as usual, and before another pre-quit visit participants were instructed to remain abstinent for at least 12 hours. During the pre-quit visits, participants completed the Concentration Difficulty subscale of the Wisconsin Smoking Withdrawal Scale and the Rapid Visual Information Processing (RVIP) task. The primary outcome variable was point prevalence smoking status four weeks post quit day (end of study). As expected, abstinence-induced declines in performance were obtained for Correct Hits (accuracy) and reaction times (RTs) for Hits on the RVIP task. Selfreported concentration problems did not correlate with objective indices of attention (RVIP) (ps >.05). Follow-up analyses indicated a significant abstinence-induced difference in Hits and RTs for Relapsers at Week 4 (ps < .05), but not for Abstainers.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 26, 2014
- Accession Number
- AD1127760
Entities
People
- Nicole S. Kang
Organizations
- Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences