Thematic Analysis of Smoking Cessation and Future Cessation Interventions for Cancer Survivors: Convenience Sampling...

Smoking after a cancer diagnosis has significant health consequences, and there are substantial benefits if cancer survivors cease smoking. However, there are few smoking cessation interventions for cancer survivors that have been effective, and they are highly resource intensive. Thus, novel low resource cessation interventions are needed. One such intervention modality that has not been tested among cancer survivors is using pre-recorded videos to deliver information about skills and resources to achieve smoking cessation.

This study aimed to assess barriers to smoking cessation, interest in a video-based smoking cessation intervention, and video content preferences (eg, topic, video length, age and gender of video presenter, presenter type [peer, medical professional]) among individuals with cancer who smoke cigarettes.

Participants were recruited from a cancer center in the southeast United States that houses an opt-out tobacco treatment program in which tobacco treatment specialists proactively call all patients who have a current smoking status in their medical record. Patients were informed about the study, and their contact information was sent to the study team. Verbal consent was obtained from individuals who were cancer survivors, who were currently smoking, and who agreed to participate; semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted (n=10). Participants were asked questions about smoking history, previous quit attempts, barriers to quitting smoking, previous experience with and openness to watching videos about quitting smoking, and participant preferences related to video content and presentation. Interviews were transcribed and coded by two reviewers, and a codebook was developed. A thematic analysis was then conducted.

Results indicated that all participants had previously tried to quit smoking, but other substance use (5/10; 50%), negative affect (eg, depression [4/10; 40%], anxiety [1/10; 10%], stress [2/10; 20%], and loneliness [1/10; 10%]), the social environment (eg, being around others who smoke [2/10; 20%] and risky social situations [2/10; 20%]), and habits surrounding smoking were significant barriers for cessation. All participants were open to watching smoking cessation videos and expressed a desire to see a peer with lived experience in the videos. Most (8/10; 80%) participants did not have preferences related to the age or gender of video presenters. Many participants had difficulty articulating content preferences for the videos.

Cancer survivors who smoke may not be aware of their knowledge gaps related to smoking cessation, and videos may be an acceptable way to provide evidence-based information to fill knowledge gaps.