Association between smokers' perceptions of smoking regulations and attitudes and beliefs about quitting

Background: There is increasing evidence that regulating smoking in public places motivates smokers to smoke less or quit. Less is known, however, about the mechanisms by which these regulations may change smoking behavior. One possibility is that more positive perceptions of the regulations mediate their effect on attitudes and beliefs about quitting.

Methods: This study included 299 adult smokers from six Texas cities who were contacted by random digit dialing and interviewed by telephone. We used sequential multiple regression analyses to examine the association between extent of support for regulating smoking in public places and attitudes about quitting, perceived norms about quitting, and perceived behavioral control/self-efficacy for quitting after controlling for demographic factors, smoking behavior, and strength of the smoking regulations in the respondent's city.

Results: Smokers' extent of agreement with regulating smoking in public places made a significant unique contribution to the prediction of one of two measures of attitudes toward taking measures to not smoke cigarettes in the next month (Beta=.133, p<.05) and both measures of perceived norms about taking measures to not smoke cigarettes in the next month (Beta=.168, p<.01; Beta=.220, p<.001). However, it was not associated with any of the three measures of perceived behavioral control/self-efficacy to take measures.

Conclusions: The results from this study suggest that agreement with regulating smoking in public places is most strongly associated with perceived norms about taking measures to quit smoking. Thus, public health messages focused on these norms may be the most effective in encouraging smokers to quit.