Smoking to Regulate Negative Affect: Disentangling the Relationship Between Posttraumatic Stress and Emotional Disorder Symptoms, Nicotine Dependence, and Cessation-Related Problems

Conclusions:
Affect-regulatory smoking motives appear to underlie associations between the symptoms of emotional disorders such as PTSD, panic, and depression in terms of smoking dependence and certain cessation-related criterion variables.

Implications:
Overall, this investigation suggests negative affect reduction smoking motives help to explain the relationship of PTSD, depression, and panic symptoms to nicotine dependence, severity of problems experienced during prior quit attempts and perceived barriers to cessation. These results highlight the importance of assessing motivations for smoking in the context of cessation treatment, especially among those with emotional disorder symptoms. Future interventions might seek to utilize motivational interviewing and cognitive restructuring techniques to address coping-oriented motives for smoking, in addition to skills for managing negative affect, as a means of improving quit outcomes.

Source: Nicotine and Tobacco Research - May 9, 2016 Category: Addiction Authors: Mahaffey, B. L., Gonzalez, A., Farris, S. G., Zvolensky, M. J., Bromet, E. J., Luft, B. J., Kotov, R. Tags: Original Investigation Source Type: research