Elsevier

Public Health

Volume 137, August 2016, Pages 192-195
Public Health

Short Communication
Psychosocial characteristics and smoking behaviour in young Western Australian pregnant women at their first hospital appointment for pregnancy care

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2016.02.005Get rights and content

Highlights

  • This study builds on the evidence around young Australian women who continue to smoke in pregnancy.

  • Young pregnant smokers require assessment of illicit drug use, suicidal ideation and sexual abuse.

  • It is important to tailor individual, woman centred approaches to promote smoking cessation.

Section snippets

Background

There has been a steady decline in the number of Western Australian (WA) women identified as tobacco smokers during pregnancy from 23% in 1999 to 12% in 2012.1 However, this decline is not evenly distributed among WA mothers. A high rate remains in pregnant women ≤19 years of age (32%) and women 20–24 years of age (22%).1 In 2012, Australian Indigenous women had the highest rates of smoking in pregnancy, their age standardised rate being 46% compared to 14% for their non-Indigenous counterparts.

Methods

The purpose of this paper was to describe the psychosocial characteristics and smoking behaviour in a sample of young, pregnant WA women who reported smoking tobacco at their first antenatal visit, following recruitment into a randomised controlled trial. This study was designed to assess the feasibility of a multiple component intervention (motivational interviewing, a non-smoking buddy and Carbon Monoxide monitoring), to assist young pregnant women to stop or reduce their smoking and assess

Results

Cohort description and comparison between light and heavy smokers are presented in Table 1. Analysis of the women's psychosocial outcomes found 89% of the 80 smoking women recruited were unemployed or not in education, 20% confirmed a history of sexual abuse, 26% reported suicide ideation and 43% conveyed using illicit drugs. Cigarette initiation occurred at a mean age of 13 years, with the mean age women ‘started smoking regularly’ being two years later, 77% had a partner who smoked and 76%

Discussion

Our study shows that young women who continue to smoke in pregnancy are a vulnerable cohort. The majority (89%) of this cohort were unemployed or not in education. One fifth reported a history of sexual abuse, around one quarter experienced suicidal ideation and just over two fifths used illicit drugs. Heavy smokers were more likely than lighter smokers to be non-Indigenous, smoke at regular intervals throughout the day, prompted to smoke by a partner who smoked or they when were bored.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the women who participated in the study.

Ethical approval

Ethics approval for this study was gained at two hospital sites in Western Australia. The Women and Newborn Health Human Ethics Committee (2022/EW) and the South Metropolitan Health Services Ethics Committee (W/13/61).

Funding

We would like to thank King Edward Memorial Hospital and Heathway for funding the study.

Competing interests

None declared.

First page preview

First page preview
Click to open first page preview

References (12)

  • M. Hutchinson

    Western Australia's mothers and babies, 2012: 30th annual report of the Western Australian midwives' notification system

    (2015)
  • L. Hilder et al.

    Australia's mothers and babies 2012. Perinatal statistics series no 30. Cat. No PER 69

    (2014)
  • C. Chamberlain et al.

    Psychosocial interventions for supporting women to stop smoking in pregnancy

    Cochrane Database Syst Rev

    (2013)
  • L.J. Rosen et al.

    Parental smoking cessation to protect young children: a systematic review and meta-analysis

    Pediatrics

    (2012)
  • L. Greaves et al.

    Expecting to quit: a best practices review of smoking cessation interventions for pregnant and postpartum women

    (2011)
  • E. Passmore et al.

    Demographic factors associated with smoking cessation during pregnancy in New South Wales, Australia, 2000-2011

    BMC Public Health

    (2015)
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (0)

View full text