Abstract
BackgroundLow-income, African-American smokers are less likely to have resources to aid in quitting smoking. Narrative communication may provide an enhancement to traditional smoking cessation interventions like NRT, medications, or behavioral treatments for this audience. After extensive pilot testing of stories and personal experiences with smoking cessation from African-Americans from a low-income community, we conducted a randomized control trial using stories to augment routine inpatient treatment among African-Americans at an urban Southern hospital (N = 300).ResultsDifferences in smoking cessation outcomes between the intervention (stories DVD + routine clinical treatment) and control (routine clinical treatment) arms were compared using self-report and carbon monoxide measurement at 6-months. Compared to control, individuals who viewed the intervention stories DVD reported greater intentions to quit. Although continuous quitting marginally favored the intervention, our main result did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.16).ConclusionNarrative communication via storytelling to promote smoking cessation among African-Americans in the South is one method to communicate smoking cessation. Results suggest this may not be sufficient as a stand-alone augmentation of routine clinical treatment for continuous smoking cessation. Smoking cessation efforts need to continually assess different means of communicating to smokers about quitting.Clinical Trials Registration: The ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier is NCT00101491. This trial was registered January 10, 2005
Highlights
Low-income, African-American smokers are less likely to have resources to aid in quitting smoking
Storytelling is a critical part of the African-American oral tradition and Cherrington et al BMC Res Notes (2015) 8:567 culture [10], and the difficulties associated with smoking cessation among African-Americans [11], lend to the potential to use narratives as a way to enhance traditional smoking cessation interventions
While the intervention did not increase quit rates at 6-months, results do suggest that patient narratives delivered via interactive DVD combined with current cessation treatment in a hospital setting may be an effective means to move the needle on intention to quit among hospitalized African-American smokers
Summary
Low-income, African-American smokers are less likely to have resources to aid in quitting smoking. After extensive pilot testing of stories and personal experiences with smoking cessation from African-Americans from a low-income community, we conducted a randomized control trial using stories to augment routine inpatient treatment among African-Americans at an urban Southern hospital (N = 300). An increasing body of literature suggests narrative communication, or storytelling, may be an effective means to promote behavior change in African-American communities [5,6,7,8] and sharing of peer experiences can be effective for smoking cessation [9]. This study represents a randomized control trial of personal stories and narratives to increase smoking cessation behaviors previously piloted [12] among African-Americans and offers considerations for the effectiveness of narratives for cessation interventions. Stories can add meaning to health issues [5] and help viewers visualize themselves engaging in actions taking place [12]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
