Daily support seeking as coping strategy in dual-smoker couples attempting to quit.

OBJECTIVE: Smoking cessation is a stressful event and lapses are frequent. The dynamic model of relapse has been criticized for not integrating interpersonal factors as phasic influences. Seeking social support, as a coping strategy to deal with cravings, may help to refrain from smoking. DESIGN: Overall, 83 heterosexual dual-smoker couples reported on their craving, the extent of seeking social support from one's partner regarding smoking cessation, and their number of cigarettes smoked in smartphone-based end-of-day diaries, from a joint self-set quit date on across 22 consecutive days. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Number of cigarettes smoked. RESULTS: Multilevel analyses indicated that on days with higher-than-average levels of craving, male and female smokers reported more cigarettes smoked. Higher-than-usual support seeking was related to fewer cigarettes smoked that same day. For women only, we found a within-person interaction between craving and support seeking on smoking. On days with higher-than-average support-seeking, the effect of craving on smoking was attenuated. CONCLUSION: Findings confirm the relevance of interpersonal processes in the relapse process, such as support seeking as coping behavior. Further, as a 'first act' in initiating supportive interactions, support seeking is an important piece in the social support process and a promising target for interventions.

Effectiveness of a Dyadic Buddy App for Smoking Cessation: Randomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: Tobacco smoking is one of the biggest public health threats. Smartphone apps offer new promising opportunities for supporting smoking cessation in real time. This randomized controlled trial investigated the effectiveness of an app that encourages individuals to quit smoking with the help of a social network member (buddy) in daily life. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to test the effectiveness of the SmokeFree buddy app compared with a control group with self-reported smoking abstinence and carbon monoxide (CO)-verified smoking abstinence as primary outcomes and self-reports of smoked cigarettes per day (CPD) as a secondary outcome. METHODS: A total of 162 adults who smoked participated in this single-blind, two-arm, parallel-group, intensive longitudinal randomized controlled trial. Around a self-set quit date (ie, 7 days before the self-set quit date and 20 days after) and 6 months later, participants of the intervention and control groups reported on daily smoking abstinence and CPD in end-of-day diaries. Daily smoking abstinence was verified via daily exhaled CO assessments. This assessment was administered via an app displaying results of exhaled CO, thus addressing self-monitoring in both groups. In addition, participants in the intervention group used the SmokeFree buddy app, a multicomponent app that facilitates social support from a buddy of choice. RESULTS: A significant reduction in CPD from baseline to the 6-month follow-up was observed among participants in both groups. Multilevel analyses revealed no significant intervention effect on self-reported and CO-verified daily smoking abstinence at the quit date and 3 weeks later. However, CPD was lower at the quit date and 3 weeks later in the intervention group than in the control group. No significant differences between groups were found for any outcome measures 6 months after the quit date. Overall, low app engagement and low perceived usefulness were observed. CONCLUSIONS: Despite some encouraging short-term findings on the amount of smoking, the SmokeFree buddy app did not have beneficial effects on smoking abstinence over and above the self-monitoring control condition. Future studies should examine whether and what support processes can be effectively stimulated and how app use can be improved to better achieve this goal. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN Registry 11154315; https://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN11154315. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): RR2-10.1186/s12889-019-7723-z.

Cultivation or enabling? Day-to-day associations between self-efficacy and received support in couples.

OBJECTIVE: Theories and empirical findings identify social support and self-efficacy as important variables for behavior change. Two competing hypotheses describe the bidirectional relationship of these two constructs: The cultivation hypothesis assumes that self-efficacy facilitates social support, whereas the enabling hypothesis assumes that social support fosters self-efficacy. To shed more light on the interplay of interpersonal and intrapersonal factors in the behavior change context in daily life, the present study aims to investigate these hypotheses at the within-person level. METHODS: In total, 99 overweight heterosexual couples intending to increase their physical activity participated in this dyadic intensive longitudinal study. Both partners independently reported on their self-efficacy and their support receipt from their partner in smartphone-based end-of-day diaries across 14 days. To investigate the competing hypotheses prospective lagged multilevel models were applied. RESULTS: For both partners, higher-than-average levels of self-efficacy on a given day predicted higher support receipt the next day, confirming the cultivation hypothesis. We found no effect of higher-than-average levels of support receipt on a given day on self-efficacy the next day, disconfirming the enabling hypothesis. Same-day support receipt and previous day self-efficacy were positively related to daily physical activity. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study investigating the cultivation and the enabling hypothesis on a day-to-day basis using a dyadic intensive longitudinal approach. Findings support the cultivation hypothesis at the within-person level, suggesting that self-efficacy may help to facilitate support receipt close in time. Future studies should use within-person experimental designs and ecological momentary assessments within days to increase our understanding of the temporal dynamics of the cultivation and enabling effect.

"We Feel Good": Daily Support Provision, Health Behavior, and Well-Being in Romantic Couples.

Intimate partners are an important source of support when pursuing health goals. A vast amount of literature documents the role of social support in alleviating recipients' distress and facilitating health behaviors. Less studied is the phenomenon that providing support may entail a benefit for the provider, particularly in the context of health behavior change. In the present study, we investigated whether providing social support in daily life would be associated with more health behavior, and emotional and relational well-being that same day, using a sample of romantic couples aiming to become more physically active. Ninety-nine inactive and overweight heterosexual romantic couples (=198 individuals) participated in this dyadic daily diary study. Both partners reported on the provision of social support, positive and negative affect, and relationship satisfaction in electronic end-of-day diaries across 14 consecutive days. Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) was objectively assessed via triaxial accelerometers (Actigraph GT3X+). Using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM), dyadic data analyses indicated that providing support to the partner was associated with higher own MVPA, more own positive affect, less own negative affect, and more own relationship satisfaction (actor effects), over and above the effect of support provision on outcomes in the other partner (partner effects). The present findings suggest that the provision of daily social support in couples is strongly associated with enhanced well-being not only at a personal level but also at a relational level. Providing social support may also serve the function of relationship maintenance. Thus, shifting the focus away from the recipient to examine beneficial effects of social support in providers is highly relevant. Future research should address the question of when, why, and how giving support is beneficial.

Smoking cessation with smartphone applications (SWAPP): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Tobacco smoking remains one of the biggest public health threats. Smartphone apps offer new promising opportunities for supporting smoking cessation in real-time. The social context of smokers has, however, been neglected in smartphone apps promoting smoking cessation. This randomized controlled trial investigates the effectiveness of a smartphone app in which smokers quit smoking with the help of a social network member. METHODS: This protocol describes the design of a single-blind, two-arm, parallel-group, intensive longitudinal randomized controlled trial. Participants of this study are adult smokers who smoke at least one cigarette per day and intend to quit smoking at a self-set quit date. Blocking as means of group-balanced randomization is used to allocate participants to intervention or control conditions. Both intervention and control group use a smartphone-compatible device for measuring their daily smoking behavior objectively via exhaled carbon monoxide. In addition, the intervention group is instructed to use the SmokeFree Buddy app, a multicomponent app that also facilitates smoking-cessation specific social support from a buddy over a smartphone application. All participants fill out a baseline diary for three consecutive days and are invited to the lab for a background assessment. They subsequently participate in an end-of-day diary phase from 7 days before and until 20 days after a self-set quit date. Six months after the self-set quit date a follow-up diary for three consecutive days takes place. The primary outcome measures are daily self-reported and objectively-assessed smoking abstinence and secondary outcome measures are daily self-reported number of cigarettes smoked. DISCUSSION: This is the first study examining the effectiveness of a smoking cessation mobile intervention using the SmokeFree Buddy app compared to a control group in a real-life setting around a self-set quit date using a portable objective measure to assess smoking abstinence. Opportunities and challenges with running studies with smoking participants and certain design-related decisions are discussed. TRIAL REGISTRATION: This trial was prospectively registered on 04/04/2018 at ISRCTNregistry: ISRCTN11154315 .

Patients with non-substance-related disorders report a similar profile of childhood trauma experiences compared to heroin-dependent patients.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Exposure to traumatic events is common among patients with substance use disorders (SUD). In patients with non-substance-related disorders, especially with gambling disorders (GD) and internet addiction (IA), traumatic childhood experiences have not been investigated extensively. The objective of this study was to compare trauma histories in patients with GD and IA to patients with heroin dependence. METHODS: Cross-sectional surveys including the childhood trauma questionnaire (CTQ) and clinical data among 107 participants; 59 patients with non-substance-related disorders (GD [n = 39]; IA [n = 20]) were compared to 28 patients prescribed injectable heroin for opioid dependence in heroin-assisted treatment (HAT) and to a healthy control group (HC) (n = 20). RESULTS: The findings revealed a high prevalence of trauma exposure in all three clinical groups, with 74.4% of patients with GD, 80.0% of patients with IA, and 93.0% of patients in HAT compared to 40% in HC. All three groups (GD, IA, HAT) reported significantly higher levels of "emotional neglect" compared to HC. CONCLUSIONS AND SCIENTIFIC SIGNIFICANCE: The results provide clinically relevant information suggesting that the burden of childhood traumatic experiences may be as common in patients with GD and IA as in patients with heroin dependence. These findings could pose an important starting-point for treatment. (Am J Addict 2017;26:215-220).