Testing a Social Cognitive Theory based behavioral intervention of yoga for smoking cessation

1. Testing a Social Cognitive Theory based behavioral intervention of yoga for smoking cessation Manoj Sharma, Ph.D., University of Cincinnati David E. Corbin, Ph.D., University of Nebraska at Omaha Session 4085, Board 1, Nov. 7 (T), 12:30 pm

2. Smoking Problem • Smoking remains as the most important preventable cause of death in the United States. • Currently there are over 60 million smokers in our country that account for 438,000 premature deaths and 5.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) annually. • The total economic costs of tobacco have been estimated to be well over $100 billion annually. • Most smokers want to quit, have experimented with quitting or are planning to quit within the next one year but more than two-thirds fail in these attempts. • Several pharmacological and behavioral therapies have been tested with varying rates of success for smoking cessation

3. Yoga based interventions for smoking cessation • A distinct advantage of the behavioral interventions over pharmacological interventions in facilitating smoking cessation is the lack of adverse side effects. • Yoga techniques have been suggested for smoking cessation but have not yet been systematically tested. • Benefits of yoga techniques have been tested as complimentary treatment to aid healing of several ailments such as: • Coronary heart disease • Hypertension • Depression • Anxiety disorders • Bronchial asthma • Extensive rehabilitation requiring disorders

4. STAGES of ASTHANGAYOGA • Yama: Techniques for successful living in society • Niyama: Techniques for managing and purifying self • Asaana: Postures • Pranayama: Breathing techniques • Pratihara: Techniques for developing dispassion toward senses • Dharana: Concentration techniques • Dhyana: Meditation techniques • Samadhi: Ultimate advanced meditation techniques and psychic procedures attained after regular practice for universal consciousness

5. Constructs of Social Cognitive Theory used in the intervention • Outcome expectations for yoga • Outcome expectancies for yoga • Self-efficacy for yoga • Self control for yoga • Self-efficacy for quitting smoking • Self control for quitting smoking

6. Design • Experimental design • Data collected at • (1) start of the intervention • (2) immediately after completion of the intervention at six weeks • (3) six months after the intervention • The primary dependent variables for comparisons between experimental and control groups were • (1) number of cigarettes smoked in the past 24 hours • (2) number of cigarettes normally smoked in a day • (3) self-efficacy for quitting with a range of 0-16 units • (4) self-control for quitting with a range of 0-16 units • In addition, in order to ascertain the adherence of smokers within the experimental group to the yoga practices in the innovative yoga-based intervention (experimental) group the dependent variables of self-efficacy and performing of yoga-related behaviors were also measured.

7. Instrumentation • The first 2 items: Number of cigarettes normally smoked in a day and number of cigarettes smoked in the past 24 hours. • The next 4 items measure self-efficacy for quitting smoking as measured by the ability to quit completely, reduce the number of cigarettes, remain smoke free for six months and remain smoke free for six months despite difficulties. The scale uses a rating of not at all sure (0), slightly sure (1), moderately sure (2), very sure (3), and completely sure (4). A summative score with a range of 0-16 units can be calculated. • The next 4 items measure self-control for quitting as measured by the ability to manage stress, set a goal for quitting, rewarding oneself, and exercising self control in remaining smoke free for six months. The scale uses a rating of not at all sure (0), slightly sure (1), moderately sure (2), very sure (3), and completely sure (4). A summative score with a range of 0-16 units can be calculated. • The next 4 items measure self-efficacy for performing yoga-related behaviors of strain relieving low physical impact postures (asana), relaxation (shava asana), breathing techniques (pranayama) and meditation (dhyana) on the same rating scale with the summative score ranging from 0-16 units. • The next 4 items measure the past week performance of the above four yoga-related behaviors. • The next 5 items measure demographic information about gender, race, education level, age and smoking cessation efforts in past year.

8. Intervention • The specific yoga behaviors were performance of: • (1) low physical impact postures (asana) • (2) relaxation (shava asana) • (3) breathing techniques (pranayama) • (4) meditation (dhyana). • The intervention was based on the school of Kundalini Yoga as taught by the renowned teachers Paranjothi Mahan and Yogiraj Vethathiri Maharishi. • The intervention consisted of yoga lessons scheduled at the convenience of the participants with the instructions for the participants to practice the techniques taught at home for 6 weeks. • The participants were also given a yoga mat and a video to help them adhere to regular self-practice at home

9. Control Group • The control group was provided with self-help reading material in the form of the existing, you can quit smoking consumer guide. • The materials in the quit smoking consumer guide included information on reasons for quitting, five keys for quitting, questions to think about, and a list of resources. • Both groups were also called three times by research staff to see how they were doing. • Both groups were encouraged to make use of the national quit line (1-800-QUIT-NOW).

10. Results • A total of 21 participants were recruited for the study of which 11 were randomly assigned to the yoga group and 10 were randomly assigned to the control group. • At 6 weeks, there were 5 participants in the yoga group who completed training and 6 in the control group. • At 6 months, 3 participants (27%) in the yoga group and 4 participants (40%) from the control group completed the protocol of the study. • The attrition rate was 48% at six weeks and 67% at 6 months which is very high.

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12. Conclusions • From the 21 participants who started in this study seven (33.3%) completed the protocol and one participant who was in the yoga group was successful in quitting smoking. • The attrition rate in this study is very high (66.7%) partly due to the reason that no monetary incentives were provided to the participants when others smoking cessation studies in the same geographical areas were offering substantial monetary incentives. • Statistically significant improvements occurred in the social cognitive-theory based yoga group over the self-help group for self-control for quitting (p  0.001) and performance of yoga behaviors (p 0.05). Such significant improvements were not observed for self-efficacy for quitting, self-efficacy for yoga, or the mean number of cigarettes smoked normally and during the past 24 hours.

13. Limitations • Conceptualized as a pilot project that would help in establishing the efficacy of the intervention approach rather than its effectiveness; therefore efforts were not made to randomly select the sample that would be representative of the population of all smokers. • Attrition was very high (67%) which occurred almost equally in both the groups. The attrition adversely affected the sample size and reduced power of the statistical tests conducted. • The recruitment for this study was carried out over a longer period of time than initially planned as a result of which yoga training was conducted in waves. This introduces several kinds of unintended biases such as variation due to time, variations in training, and lack of all data collection at the same time. • All measurements were done using paper-and-pencil self-reports. • The duration and intensity of yoga done at home was not measured and must be done by future studies. • Long term assessment beyond six months was not done and it would have been nice to follow-up the participants for at least one year.