Emotion regulation expectancies and smoking cessation factors: A daily diary study of California adults who smoke cigarettes during a practice quit attempt

Significance: Cross-sectional studies have shown that greater cigarette smoking-related emotion regulation ex-pectancies were associated with retrospectively reported withdrawal during prior quit attempts and greater barriers to cessation. Few studies have investigated the relationship of within-person daily emotion regulation expectancies to factors related to initiating and maintaining a brief quit attempt.Methods: People living in California who smoked cigarettes daily (n = 220, 50 % female; 48.5 % white, 14.6 % Hispanic, 16.7 % Black or African American, 9.6 % Asian, 7.6 % Multi-race, 3.0 % other race; mean age=43.71 years old) completed a practice quit attempt and 28-days of daily diary surveys. In the morning, participants reported non-smoking and smoking emotion regulation expectancies based on the Affective Processing Ques-tionnaire, daily abstinence plan, abstinence self-efficacy, and cigarettes smoked. Successful abstinence plans were calculated as days with an abstinence plan and no cigarettes smoked. Multilevel models investigated whether within-person emotion regulation expectancies were associated with abstinence plan, self-efficacy, and successful abstinence plan.Results: Greater within-person non-smoking emotion regulation expectancies were associated with increased odds of having an abstinence plan, higher self-efficacy, and a successful abstinence plan on a given day (ps < .05). Greater within-person smoking emotion regulation expectancies were associated with lower odds of having an abstinence plan and lower self-efficacy (ps < .001) but did not significantly associate with a successful abstinence plan.Conclusions: These findings show that within-person levels of expectations in emotion regulation abilities may contribute to factors relevant to initiating and achieving daily abstinence during a practice attempt.

Automated summary

Cross-sectional studies have shown that cigarette smoking-related emotion regulation expectancies are associated with withdrawal during prior quit attempts and barriers to cessation. This study investigates the relationship of within-person daily emotion regulation expectancies to factors related to initiating and maintaining a brief quit attempt. The findings suggest that within-person levels of expectations in emotion regulation abilities may contribute to factors relevant to initiating and achieving daily abstinence during a practice attempt.