Abstract
In Europe, smoking during and after pregnancy is still highly prevalent among socioeconomically disadvantaged women. Nurses caring for these women can play a key role in smoking cessation, but encounter many problems when providing support. This research aims to identify barriers in providing smoking cessation support, experienced by nurses working within a Dutch preventive care programme for disadvantaged young women (VoorZorg), and to understand the underlying reasons of these barriers. Sixteen semi‐structured interviews with nurses were performed. All interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed deductively and inductively. We found that the VoorZorg programme provided nurses with training, resources and time to deliver smoking cessation support. Yet, nurses experienced important barriers, such as unmotivated clients and support methods that do not fit clients’ needs. Underlying reasons are competing care demands, unsatisfactory training for cessation support, lack of self‐efficacy in attending their clients, and conflicts with own professional attitudes. The results emphasise that nurses’ ability to provide smoking cessation support could be improved by proper training in interventions that fit their clients’ needs, and by time schedules and task definitions that help them to prioritise smoking cessation support over other matters.
Highlights
About a quarter of European women that smoke before their pregnancy, continue smoking during their pregnancy (Smedberg, Lupattelli, Mårdby, & Nordeng, 2014)
Professionals caring for pregnant women can play a key role in helping women move through the stages of change by providing smoking cessation support, as pregnancy is found to be a naturally oc‐ curring teachable moment for smoking cessation (McBride, Emmons, & Lipkus, 2003)
Our aims were to assess the barriers that nurses experience in providing smoking cessation support to socioeconomically disad‐ vantaged young women during and after pregnancy, and to under‐ stand the underlying reasons of these barriers
Summary
About a quarter of European women that smoke before their pregnancy, continue smoking during their pregnancy (Smedberg, Lupattelli, Mårdby, & Nordeng, 2014). Maternal cigarette smoking during pregnancy is associated with orofacial clefts, still birth, low birth weight, preterm birth and sudden infant death syndrome (U.S Department of Health & Human Services, 2014), and a wide range of health consequences later in life (e.g. asthma, wheeze, and weight related health problems; Bell et al, 2018). Children's exposure to second‐hand smoke after birth is causally linked to sudden infant death syndrome, middle ear disease and respiratory diseases (U.S Department of Health and Human Services, 2014). Healthcare professionals can include the post‐partum period in smoking cessation support, as women may want to quit smoking after giving birth in order to protect their baby from second‐hand smoke. Many women relapse in this period (DiClemente, Dolan‐Mullen, & Windsor, 2000)
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