Impact of self-efficacy on daily intention to not smoke.

Background: To improve cessation interventions, it is necessary to understand the factors associated with daily motivation to not smoke. One hypothesized factor is self-efficacy; however, there has been a lack of evidence investigating self-efficacy as a dynamic construct.

Methods: This study examined the influence of baseline and daily self-efficacy on setting daily abstinence plans in pre-quit smokers and successful plans. Participants (N = 76) completed measures of self-efficacy at baseline, and each evening during 28 days of ecological momentary assessment.

Results: Baseline self-efficacy was not correlated with mean daily rating of self-efficacy or variance in ratings. GLMM found that participants who had higher baseline self-efficacy than others were more likely to set an abstinence plan while participants who had a higher rating of self-efficacy on the previous night than others were more likely to set a plan on any given morning. Participants were less likely to set an abstinence plan if they had smoked on the previous day but were more likely if they had set an abstinence plan on the previous day. Participants were less likely to have a successful plan not to smoke if they smoked on the previous day.

Conclusions: The current data indicates that both baseline rating and day-to-day fluctuations in SE influence daily abstinence plan in pre-quit smokers. Future intervention research could examine the use of methods designed to increase and maintain a person's daily self-efficacy and how this can be leveraged to encourage these smokers to attempt long-term cessation.