How does coping help people resist lapses during smoking cessation?

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether types of coping strategies have differential effects on preventing lapses and lowering urge levels and to investigate mechanisms by which coping strategies prevent lapses during smoking cessation. DESIGN: Sixty-one respondents performed ecological momentary assessment using palm-top computers and tape recorders to report their coping strategies and urge levels before and after temptations to smoke. Multilevel linear regression models were used to compare the effects of individual strategy types with the average strategy. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Lapses versus resisted temptations and changes in urge levels. RESULTS: Number of strategies significantly predicted resisting smoking and change in urge levels. Compared with the effect of the average strategy, movement/exercise was marginally worse at preventing lapses, and food/drink was marginally related to higher postcoping urge levels. CONCLUSION: Although using multiple coping strategies helps people resist the urge to smoke, no particular coping strategy works better than any other. Coping strategies prevent lapses by reducing high urge levels during temptations.

Thinking and/or doing as strategies for resisting smoking.

The effects of behavioral strategies and cognitive strategies, individually or in combination, on the likelihood of lapsing during smoking cessation were examined by random effects regression analyses of 1,499 temptations reported by 61 smokers during the first 2 weeks of cessation. Compared to using no strategies, using either type exclusively or in combination was significantly protective from lapsing. The combination was not significantly better than using multiple cognitive strategies, but was superior to using a single behavioral strategy, a single cognitive strategy, or multiple behavioral strategies. Use of coping strategies during temptation episodes was highly related to resisting smoking. Maximum benefit accrued to using more than one strategy of which at least one was a cognitive strategy.