Attitudes about Cigarette Smoking, Perceived Consequences of Smoking, and Seeking Assistance with Cessation among Black and White Cigarette Smokers: A Qualitative Study

Table 3

Summary of group-specific basic themes.

Topic	Question(s)	Basic themes (Blacks)	Basic themes (Whites)
Craving and withdrawal	What do you do when it is impossible to smoke?	(i) Use of cognitive distractions ()—“take my mind off it,” “accept it,” “mentally prepare myself,” “divert my thoughts and think about something else,” “fix my mind onto something else”; (ii) Use of behavioral distractions ()—“write, read, go on facebook, entertain myself,” “relax and say my prayers,” “find something else to do,” “occupy my time, read a book, watch a movie, take a nap,” “clean something up, watch some tv, go and start something that I need to do…sort of some paperwork,” “I go to sleep,” “snack on something”; (iii) Belief they can ignore/handle cravings without distractions ()—“nothing. just bear with it”, “I accept it”	(i) Use of cognitive distractions ()—“do not really think about it. I know it’s not in the picture, so you just do not really think about it, I cant explain how I do that, I guess you are making an adjustment in your mind where you just know its not possible to do,” “I put it out of my mind,” “I do not even think about it”; (ii) Use of behavioral distractions ()—“I usually chew gum..I read,” “I bite my lip a lot,” “sleep…count the minutes,” “play games on my phone, whatever,” “chew gum or eat,” “read, text,” simply preoccupy myself, play games on the phone, get to eat…a latte, anything, just keep myself preoccupied doing something else”; (iii) Belief they can ignore/handle cravings without distractions ()—“I can control it,” “It does not bother me like that these days,” “as far as substitutes for it, no I do not really do,” “Um, nothing in particular”
Help with smoking cessation	There are a lot of different ways we can provide information on smoking cessation, for example, written materials, group discussion, and talking with your doctor. What do you think would suit you best?	(i) Preference for written materials ()—“written instructions,” “written material if anything. Information is helpful with me. It helps combat my brain thinking that I need a cig. That’s the power of information,” “written material,” “written materials.” The decision is yours. So after lots of times when you make a decision, after obtaining more information about it and lots of times you can learn more by reading about a situation and better understand it, “you can learn more by reading,” “the written material, I never tried, I’d probably just read first”; (ii) Preference for speaking with a doctor ()—“hypnosis, I’ve tried them all. Yes, spoke with a doctor,” “talking with a doctor… And talking to a doctor is always good for something. I find myself talking to a doctor more often than not, lately. Just about general health, because it’s a good thing to try and stay healthy,” “talking with a doctor, cause it can prescribe stuff for you to stop”; (iii) Preference for participating in group discussion ()—“group discussions… Because it helps when you have more than one person going through the same thing youre going through” “maybe a group discussion. In a group, people are talking who are in a similar situation as yourself. And you find that it’s a pool of knowledge, theres different situations, different things people have tried, you know, somethings fail and somethings work. Theres a lot of suggestions in there. I think I would get more from talking with a group than talking with a doctor”	(i) Preference for written materials ()—“written materials...online, because ill probably end up searching for something online. So a good place to start would be the written materials, that’s just normally how I approach things. I usually like to look up things like that first and then start talking to people, like professional people or friends and family”; (ii) Prefer to speak to a doctor ()—“probably talking to a doctor. Doctors are pretty professional and know a lot about certain things. I trust doctors, they really know which literature to go to and stuff like that,” “My doctor. She gave me these things that I suck on...I had to fight her for it. I was like...I would like to try this thing to try and stop smoking and she was like,” “no, you cannot try to stop, you have to stop smoking...,” “She just wasn’t very encouraging. But I got the things...so sometimes when I do not have cigs, I’ll use it,” “I would go to the doctor first,” “probably speaking with a doctor. I like getting hands on information, right there. And its pretty factual,” “Talking with a doctor. I do not need support and to talk to a doctor would be better”; (iii) Prefer group discussion ()—“group discussion. Cause when you sit there and you are kinda confronting it, confronting your own disease. Cause you are around people that have the same problem as you, and you are hearing things that you go through from other people. And from what you say, can...I do not know...bring something out of somebody else, and you are gonna hear what you need to hear,” “group…I think its the most sympathetic and understanding place,” “group discussions. I like to talk and hear other people’s view points. I need some peers like myself and wont feel so isolated and so alone in trying this,” “group discussion”
Social support	How do relationships help or hurt your quit attempts?	(i) Relationships hurt quit attempt ()—“Probably smoke more I guess”; (ii) Relationships helped quit attempt ()—“help you stop smoking…yeah,” “Hurt? No. There are people that do not like smoking because they are non-smokers but they accept the fact that im a smoker because when they met me I was a smoker.” “I guess they do help whenever I do attempt to quit. I get nothing but positive feedback and support,” “By supporting me, telling me do not smoke, be there for me, if they see me smoking, take the cig away from me,” “I think it helps in a way because, you know, people who care about you, they acknowledge the harm that you are doing to yourself. And in a way they kind of appreciate the way you are starting to care about yourself a little more”; (iii) Relationships neither hurt nor help quit attempts ()—“it depends,” “have not hurt or helped. it just…it was…the relationships were built around other things, it did not have anything to do with smoking or not smoking. Either it worked or it did not,” “Either or. it do not help or hurt,” “hurt? no,” “it has not helped or it has not hurt either”, “Varies, my wife is okay, she’s known me for a very long time, as long as I do not smoke in the house there’s no problem. My aunt, I cannot even smoke on her property, I cannot go outside and smoke, I cannot even smoke in front of the house on the sidewalk. It just varies with different people…my wife she called it quits a long time ago, she just gave up on me.” “You know it’s just part of his character, he smokes, you know”; (iv) No answer ()	(i) Relationships hurt quit attempt ()—“Relationships do not help anything… They probably do not help. Because relationships are hard, they probably want you to smoke even more. They add stress,” “Relationships? I would think they are more of a distraction. They do not help though. I do not think they do anything,” “Um, mostly hurt, like I said pretty much everyone I know smokes, so it makes it harder to actually quit. Because I know im going to be around it”; (ii) Relationships helped quit attempt ()—“Helped…I was married at the time, and most of our problems actually had to do with smoking. Because she was totally against it and she wanted to get me to quit and we fought over it a lot of times and I said,” “okay fine I’ll try, I’ll do my best.” So she helped, she wanted the best for me,” “if I were in a relationship where I was living with somebody who was a non smoker and if it interfered, it was cause me to quit”; (iii) Relationships neither hurt nor help quit attempts ()—“Neither. Like I told you, its all on me,” “Hurt or help? Well I got a new friend who buys me cigs everyday. Its been a great help… I would need a whole army...I do not know what I would need. Maybe a hypnotist, I do not know”; (iv) Did not know how to respond ()—“Well lately, everyone has alienated me, so its just me. I really do not even have an answer to that right now, you know?”

Note: this table only includes basic themes where participants’ responses differed per group. All basic themes, including those where there was no notable difference in response based on groups, are reported in Table 2. is frequency.