Psychological network analysis of the relations between beliefs about smoking for smokers with and without a recent quit attempt.

Abstract

Objective: Psychological network analysis was used to evaluate the relations between beliefs about cigarette smoking in current smokers with and without a recent quit attempt and determine if these networks differed in global strength (how strongly beliefs are related) or global structure (which beliefs are related).

Design: Using two publicly available datasets, the California Smokers' Cohort (CSC; N = 933) and Wave 1 of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH; N = 7855), we evaluated differences in global strength and global structure of the beliefs held by current smokers with and without a recent quit attempt.

Main outcome measures: Strength and structure of networks generated for current smokers with and without a recent quit attempt.

Results: In the CSC dataset there were differences between smokers with and without a recent quit attempt in global structure and marginal differences in global strength; the PATH dataset suggested small differences in global strength and structure.

Conclusion: The present study suggests that consideration of relations among smoking beliefs may be a valuable contribution to characterizing smoking beliefs when assessing smoking quit attempts.