Predictors of smoking cessation during pregnancy

Aims. The purpose of this study was to determine predictors of smoking cess ation from a sample of pregnant Medicaid recipients. Of special interest wa s whether patient stage of change, based on the transtheoretical model, was predictive of smoking behavior change during pregnancy. Participants/setti ng. The sample was drawn from a cohort of pregnant smokers who were partici pants in a prospective, randomized clinical trial conducted in four public health maternity clinics in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. Design/measurements. The 435 participants entered prenatal care on or before their 24th week of gestation and had saliva collected for cotinine assays at baseline and foll ow-up. In this secondary analysis, descriptive statistics defined the sampl e, cross-tabulation procedures identified a preliminary set of predictor va riables, and discriminant function analyses predicted group membership-quit ter or smoker. Findings/conclusions. Discriminant function analyses reveale d that patient baseline cotinine value, duration of smoking habit, self-eff icacy, exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, and exposure to patient edu cation methods were predictive of non-smoking status assessed during the th ird trimester of pregnancy.