Effects of readiness to change, quit history, and health perceptions on depressive symptoms among young adult smokers

Background: The current study sought to evaluate the main and interactive effect of health perceptions, smoking quit attempt history, and readiness to change with respect to depressive symptoms among college student smokers.

Method: The present data came from baseline data from a randomized trial and included 495 undergraduate students (M_age = 23.84, SD = 4.92, 47.47% female) who reported smoking at least 1 cigarette per day.

Results: A three-way interaction emerged between smoking quit attempt history, health perceptions, and readiness to change with respect to depressive symptoms. Quit attempt history was positively associated with depressive symptoms, particularly among individuals high in readiness to change if they perceived their health as poorer relative to peers; however, quit attempt history was negatively associated with depressive symptoms, particularly among individuals high in readiness to change if they perceived their health as comparable or better than that of their peers.

Conclusion: These findings support the assertion that readiness to change, quit history and perceived health interact in a dynamic way to confer greater risk for poor outcomes including smoking- (e.g., cessation failure) and psychological-related outcomes (e.g., increased depressive symptoms). As such, development of informed interventions and programs targeting readiness to change to improve quit history and perceptions of health may provide unique benefit.