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Multicenter Study
. 2014 Jul;39(7):1183-90.
doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2014.03.019. Epub 2014 Mar 26.

Time perspective as a determinant of smoking cessation in four countries: Direct and mediated effects from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) 4-Country Surveys

Peter A Hall  1 , Geoffrey T Fong  2 , Gang Meng  2
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

Time perspective as a determinant of smoking cessation in four countries: Direct and mediated effects from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) 4-Country Surveys

Peter A Hall et al. Addict Behav. 2014 Jul.

Abstract

Background: Future oriented time perspective predicts a number of important health behaviors and outcomes, including smoking cessation. However, it is not known how future orientation exerts its effects on such outcomes, and no large scale cross-national studies have examined the question prospectively. The aim of the current investigation was to examine the relationship between time perspective and success in smoking cessation, and social cognitive mediators of the association.

Methods: The ITC-4 is a multi-wave, four country survey (Australia, Canada, United States, United Kingdom) of current smokers (N=9772); the survey includes baseline measurements of time perspective, intentions, quit attempts, and self-reported quit status at follow-up over 8 years. We examined the predictive power of time perspective for smoking cessation, as mediated through strength of quit intentions and prior history of quit attempts.

Results: Findings indicated that those smokers with a stronger future orientation at baseline were more likely to have successfully quit at follow-up. This effect was partially explained by intention-mediated effects of future orientation on quit attempts.

Conclusions: Future orientation predicts smoking cessation across four English-speaking countries; the cessation-facilitating effects of future orientation may be primarily due to future oriented individuals' motivated and sustained involvement in the quit cycle over time.

Keywords: Health behavior; Intention; Smoking; Smoking cessation; Temporal; Time perspective.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Path diagram of Model 5
Note: QA – Quit attempts; QI – quit intention; TP – time perspective; HSI – heaviness of smoking index; TIS – time in sample; INC – income; i – individual i; t =2,3, …, 8, representing waves. QAi,t ~ binary (pi,t) and QA*i,t = logit (pi,t). µα and µβ are the intercept and slope (wave) parameters in Table 4. γcountry represents the country and wave interaction terms in Table 4. All other µs represent corresponding fixed parameters in Table 4. ζs are individual-level random effects. Only statistically significant paths are included. Mediation effects were tested by adding in/taking off the QI paths. In this figure, µTP is the direct fixed effect of time perspective on QA and µQI is the Mediated/indirect effect of intention strength on QA in Model 5. If taking off the QI paths, the figure represents Model 4 and µTP in this case becomes the total fixed effect of time perspective on QA.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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