The Effect of a Values Clarification Strategy on the Smoking Behavior of Pregnant Women

<p>The null hypothesis of this study stated that there would be no significant difference (α=.05) in the change in smoking behavior following a teaching intervention to discourage smoking in pregnant women between those who completed a values clarifying strategy prior to the intervention and those who did not. Forty subjects were randomly assigned 20 to an experimental group and 20 to a control group. Both groups completed a pretest questionnaire concerning demographic data and smoking behavior. Information regarding the adverse effects on the fetus and on the developing child of smoking was presented to each subject by the researcher. The members of the experimental group completed a values clarifying strategy prior to receiving this information. A posttest questionnaire concerning smoking behavior was completed four weeks later by 14 of the control group and by 15 of the experimental group, the control group reduced their smoking behavior, four remained unchanged, Seven of and three increased their smoking behavior. Eleven of the experimental group reported reduced smoking behavior and four remained unchanged. The Mann Whitney U and the Binomial Test for Equality of Proportions were the statistical tests used to analyze the smoking behavior data. The difference in reduction of smoking behavior between the groups was not found to be significant at the 5 percent level; however, a trend was found in favor of decreased smoking in the experimental group: p=.07 using the Mann Whitney U and p=.09 using the Binomial Test for Equality of Proportions. The null hypothesis was retained. A t-test was run on the comparison of changes between the experimental and control groups in decreased number of cigarettes and gave a significant difference (p=.05). Due to skewing of the distribution of the differences for the experimental group, the test was declared inappropriate. The difference between the groups on the number of pregnancy variable was significant (p=.05), yet the correlation between this variable and the variable change in the number of cigarettes was not significantly different from zero (r=.003).</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Nursing

Year

1979

Author dc:creator

• Eiber, Jean

Contributors dc:contributor

• Clarice W. Woodward
• Frances P. Miller
• Joyce W. Hopp

• Maternal, Child Health and Neonatal Nursing
• Multivariate Analysis
• Nursing
• Statistical Models
• Substance Abuse and Addiction
• Smoking; Pregnancy Toxemias

Statement dc:rights

• This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has granted Loma Linda University a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other copyrights.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/etd/1703

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarsrepository.llu.edu:etd-2365