Four-year prospective evaluation of the relationship between meaning in life and smoking status

Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy

Mária S Kopp¹  Róbert Urbán²  Barna Konkolÿ Thege³ 

[1] Institute of Behavioral Sciences, Semmelweis University, Nagyvárad tér 4. XX. em, Budapest, Hungary;Department of Personality and Health Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Izabella u. 46, Budapest, 1078, Hungary;Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB T2N1N4, Canada

关键词: Structural equation modeling;    Prospective design;    Meaning in life;    Change in smoking status;   

Others  :  834426
DOI  :  10.1186/1747-597X-8-8

 received in 2012-11-02, accepted in 2013-02-20,  发布年份 2013

【 摘 要 】

Background

To date, all investigations on the relationship between smoking and perceived level of meaning in life have used cross-sectional designs. Therefore, the purpose of the present prospective study, conducted with a four-year time lag, was to test the predictive power of the life meaning construct concerning changes in smoking status.

Methods

The data of 4,294 respondents (40.3% male, M_age = 54.7 ± 16.5 yrs) from the Hungarian Epidemiological Panel Survey were analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann–Whitney U-test and structural equation modeling (SEM) with a nominal outcome variable. Gender, age, and educational level were included in the study as covariates.

Results

On the bivariate level, results showed that both baseline and follow-up meaning in life scores were higher in stable non-smokers when compared to stable smokers. However, quitters and starters differed from stable non-smokers in their baseline but not in follow-up life meaning scores. The other relationships (stable smokers vs. quitters; stable smokers vs. starters, starters vs. quitters) were non-significant in both time points. According to the SEM-analysis, a higher sense of meaning in life measured at baseline and follow-up is associated with a lower likelihood (OR = 0.54, z = 2.80, p = 0.005; OR = 0.64, z = 2.88, p = 0.004, respectively) of being a stable smoker compared to being a stable non-smoker, confirming the expected relationship between smoking and decreased level of meaning in life. However, neither baseline nor follow-up life meaning scores predicted significantly quitting and uptake of smoking.

Conclusions

If future research from other cultures verifies the protective role of a higher level of meaning in life against smoking, then smoking prevention and cessation programs will also have to include such components that help individuals experience more meaning in their lives.

【 授权许可】

   
2013 Konkolÿ Thege et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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