Abstract
The current study investigated whether quit success among employees who participated in a smoking cessation intervention at the workplace was associated with social support from, and the smoking behavior of, people in their environment. Tobacco-smoking employees (n = 604) from 61 companies participated in a workplace group smoking cessation program. Participants completed questionnaires assessing social support from, and the smoking behavior of, people in their social environment. They were also tested for biochemically validated continuous abstinence directly after finishing the training and after 12 months. The data were analyzed using mixed-effects logistic regression analyses. Social support from colleagues was positively associated with 12-month quit success (odds ratio (OR) = 1.85, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.14–3.00, p = 0.013). Support from a partner was positively associated with short-term quit success (OR = 2.01, 95% CI = 1.23–3.30, p = 0.006). Having a higher proportion of smokers in the social environment was negatively associated with long-term abstinence (OR = 0.81, 95% CI = 0.71–0.92, p = 0.002). Compared to having a non-smoking partner, long-term quit success was negatively associated with having no partner (OR = 0.48, 95% CI = 0.26–0.88, p < 0.019), with having a partner who smokes (OR = 0.40, 95% CI = 0.24–0.66, p < 0.001), and with having a partner who used to smoke (OR = 0.47, 95% CI = 0.26–0.86, p = 0.014). In conclusion, people in a smoker’s social environment, particularly colleagues, were strongly associated with quit success. The workplace may, therefore, be a favorable setting for smoking cessation interventions.
Highlights
Current smoking cessation therapy focusses mainly on the individual smoker who wants to quit, smoking is a social behavior that is greatly influenced by a smoker’s social environment [1,2,3].Smoking cessation group therapy, where groups of individual smokers quit together, is designed to stimulate peer support and peer pressure in order to improve the quit success of participants [4].during most smoking cessation treatments, the wider social environment of the quitter, including family, friends and colleagues, is usually not actively involved
Further research is needed to confirm our findings. Another limitation of the current study is that while we investigated the influence of the smoking behavior of the social environment and social support between baseline and the end of the smoking cessation program, we did not assess the influence of changes in these variables within the remainder of the 12-month follow-up period
Social support from colleagues was strongly associated with the long-term quit success of employees who participated in a group smoking cessation training program at the workplace
Summary
Current smoking cessation therapy focusses mainly on the individual smoker who wants to quit, smoking is a social behavior that is greatly influenced by a smoker’s social environment [1,2,3]. During most smoking cessation treatments, the wider social environment of the quitter, including family, friends and colleagues, is usually not actively involved. This is unfortunate, since social support from, and the smoking behavior of people in the social environment may be key factors in quit success [2,5,6]. Public Health 2019, 16, 2831; doi:10.3390/ijerph16162831 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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