Perceived Risk and Worry For One's Partner and Self Correlate With Desire to Quit in Dual-Smoker Couples

Abstract

Among smokers, the desire to quit smoking is often related to one9s health concerns. However, much less is known about how perceptions of health concerns are related in couples in which both partners smoke (i.e., dual smoker couples) and their associations with desire to quit for self. We explored these issues using baseline survey data collected from 63 dual smoker couples recruited from the community in central North Carolina. Participants were aged 21 to 67 (M = 43.0, SD = 11.3) and had been smoking for 4 to 51 years (M = 22.9, SD = 11.3) with an average of 17 (SD = 8.8) cigarettes per day. Within couples, partners exhibited similar beliefs about worry about physical harm of smoking for oneself (r = .30, p