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Biomedical subjects

J R Eiser

Publications and source records attributed to J R Eiser.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1989

Prospective study of factors predicting uptake of smoking in adolescents.

Risk factors for the uptake of cigarette smoking were examined prospectively in 2159 non-smoking secondary schoolchildren aged 11-13 who participated in a survey in 1983 and were followed up 30 months later, by which time 35 per cent had taken up smoking. In a multivariate logistic model, the strongest predictors to emerge were prior experimentation with cigarettes and sex, with more girls (41%) than boys (30%) starting to smoke. Other predictors of taking up smoking were being uncertain about smoking in the future, reporting having been drunk, having a boy or girl friend, believing teachers and friends would not mind if they took up smoking, and giving lower estimates of prevalence of smoking among teachers. Parental smoking behaviour and attitudes, beliefs about the effects of smoking on health, opinions about smoking and perceived strictness of parents did not predict take up of smoking when other variables were controlled for. The odds of taking up smoking varied from 0.24 (risk = 0.19) for a child with the most favourable combination of risk factors to 3.49 (risk = 0.78) for a child with the worst prognosis. These results differ from those of many cross sectional studies and hence indicate the importance of a prospective approach to this type of research.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

Health behavior as goal-directed action.

The perceived relationship of different health-related activities to a number of goals, including that of staying healthy, was examined by means of a postal questionnaire completed by 403 members of the general public. Other questions concerned subjects' own health behavior, intentions for behavior change, and vulnerability to specific conditions. The results showed that the extent to which subjects would value and engage in different behaviors (smoking, drinking, exercising, eating, and relaxing) was related to how far such behaviors were seen to facilitate the attainment of different goals. However, the value subjects placed on "staying healthy" was at best a partial predictor of their health habits and intentions.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Attitudes, attributions, and persuasion: how young people's ideas about drugs relate to their preferences for different strategies of prevention.

1,352 pupils, aged 14 to 15 years, completed questionnaires concerned with their beliefs about why people begin to take drugs and how they felt they could best be persuaded to stop. Endorsement of a "life-skills" approach to prevention related strongly to pupils' own social skills and self-reliance and to attributions for drug use in terms of social pressure and experimentation. In addition, a "scare" approach was favored by those who saw drug takers as lacking in morality. The data suggest that the success of any prevention program is at least partly dependent on an individual's initial beliefs about drugs and drug takers.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

"Sick" or "hooked": smokers' perceptions of their addiction.

A postal questionnaire was completed by 233 smokers who had contacted a television company for help with stopping smoking. Subjects recorded how well each of 20 statements described their feelings about their own smoking. These responses were submitted to a principal components analysis which revealed two interpretable factors. The first ('Sick') reflected a tendency to see smoking as a sickness, and a greater concern over health consequences. The second ('Hooked') reflected a feeling of inability to give up smoking, and a resentment at other's attempts at dissuasion. Subjects with higher 'Sick' factor scores perceived greater potential benefit in their stopping (in terms of a reduction of risk of cancer). Higher 'Hooked' factor scores were given by females, older smokers, those who described themselves as more extremely addicted, and those who saw less benefit for themselves in stopping.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Young children's understanding of smoking.

32 children aged 7-8 years and 30 children aged 10-11 years were interviewed individually about their knowledge and beliefs about the physiological and social effects of smoking. Knowledge about the consequences of smoking in terms of vulnerability to disease and damage to the body increased with age but was high for both groups. Most striking was the increase with age in children's awareness that smoking could be used to control negative mood states rather than simply result in positive enjoyment. The data attest to much social, rather than purely cognitive learning, of beliefs about smoking among children.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1985

Passive exposure to tobacco smoke: saliva cotinine concentrations in a representative population sample of non-smoking schoolchildren.

Saliva cotinine concentrations in 569 non-smoking schoolchildren were strongly related to the smoking habits of their parents. When neither parent smoked the mean concentration was 0.44 ng/ml, rising to 3.38 ng/ml when both parents were cigarette smokers. Mothers' smoking had a stronger influence than did fathers' (p less than 0.01). In addition, there was a small independent effect of number of siblings who smoked (p less than 0.01). The dose of nicotine received from fathers' smoking was estimated as equivalent to the active smoking of 30 cigarettes a year, that from mothers' smoking as equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes a year, and that from both parents smoking as equivalent to smoking 80 cigarettes a year. This unsolicited burden may be prolonged throughout childhood and poses a definite risk to health.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1985

Trying to stop smoking: effects of perceived addiction, attributions for failure, and expectancy of success.

This paper reports the results of a postal questionnaire completed by 2343 smokers who had contacted a television company for help with stopping smoking. Of these, 1848 (78.9%) completed a follow-up questionnaire 1 year later. This indicated that 797 had tried to stop, 709 had tried to cut down, and 164 had become abstinent. Analyses show that the intention to try to stop smoking was dependent not only on the perceived health benefit, but also on the subjects' confidence that they would succeed if they tried to stop. As predicted by Weiner's [(1979). J. Educ. Psychol. 71: 3-25] model of achievement motivation, those who attributed other smokers' failures at quitting to stable factors had lower expectancies of success, as had those who saw themselves as more addicted. When the follow-up data are considered, reported attempts at quitting were strongly related to previously declared intentions, and reported abstinence was related to previous confidence (expectancy of success) and perceived addiction. There is no support for hypotheses concerning self-other differences in attribution, or defensive attribution, in subjects' attributions for their own failures at cessation. Implications for antismoking interventions are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

The personal characteristics and life-style of the young drinker: the results of a survey of British adolescents.

It is argued that studying the drinking patterns of adolescents can add much to our understanding of alcohol use. The present paper hypothesises that heavy drinkers will be experiencing more stress than light, moderate or non-drinkers and that consequently, they will perceive themselves as doing worse in school and will report more conflict with their parents. It is predicted that heavy drinkers will have failed to learn norms controlling alcohol use. It is anticipated that social norms are learnt through controlled drinking in a family setting and thus it is predicted that heavy drinkers will be less likely to drink with their parents and more likely to drink with their peers, than other groups of drinkers. It is argued that heavy drinkers will be more involved in peer group activities and less concerned about their health, than light, moderate or non-drinkers. These hypotheses were tested in a survey of 10 579 British adolescents (5068 boys), and support was found for all but one of these hypothesis (i.e., the hypothesis that heavy drinkers would be less likely to drink with their parents than light or moderate drinkers).

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1985

Is there a substitute for Structured Interview assessments of type A behaviour?

Discriminant analyses, attempting to predict the Type A behaviour categorization achieved by means of the Structured Interview (SI), were carried out on the responses of 93 British males to the Jenkins Activity Survey and the Framingham Scale, together with information regarding their smoking habits, alcohol consumption, tea and coffee drinking and obesity levels, all of which have been suggested as risk factors for coronary heart disease. Where classification agreements with the SI were found to be above 50 per cent, classification functions based on the discriminant analyses were calculated from the responses of 36 additional male subjects. The actual SI categories were compared with the predicted categories for this second subject group. The results indicated that no reliable and robust alternative was available to predict the SI categorization. The implications of these results for the substitution of the SI by self-report questionnaires are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

The effect of fear-arousing communications on cigarette smoking: an expectancy-value approach.

This paper describes a model, derived from subjective expected utility ( SEU ) theory, which attempts to explain the effects of a fear-arousing communication about smoking and lung cancer on smokers' decisions to try to stop smoking. According to the model, the strength of the smoker's intention to try to stop smoking will depend on three factors: (1) the utility of lung cancer; (2) the perceived reduction in the risk of getting lung cancer that follows from successfully stopping smoking (probability difference); and (3) the subjective probability of successfully stopping smoking, or confidence. The usefulness of this model vis-á-vis one based on the amount of fear aroused by the communication was investigated in two experimental studies conducted in the field in which smokers watched either a videotape about smoking or one on a different health topic. The smoking videotape influenced not only attitudes and beliefs measured immediately after exposure but also subsequent self-reports of behavior (whether or not the subject tried to stop smoking or to cut down in the 3-month period following exposure to the videotape). In accordance with predictions, the three variables specified by the model together affected intention to try to stop smoking, which in turn affected behavior. The effect of confidence on intention was relatively large. There was no evidence for the multiplicative combination of utilities and subjective probabilities predicted by a strict SEU model. Contrary to the predictions of the model, but consistent with previous research, the amount of fear aroused by the videotape had an independent effect on intention, suggesting that explanations of the effects of fear-arousing communications will have to incorporate both cognitive and emotional mediation processes.

Cognition↗
PubMed1984

Effects of information about specific nutrient content on ratings of "goodness" and "pleasantness" of common foods.

In a study of the effects of information concerning nutrient content on ratings of foods, subjects (247 male and female school students aged 13-14 years) rated a list of 21 common foods on two scales "good for you" and "pleasant", either without prior information (control group) or after being shown, and asked to memorize, a classification of the foods as "high" "medium" and "low" in terms of a specified nutrient. There were five experimental groups, each receiving classificatory information about a different nutrient (iron, protein, carbohydrate, calorie or fat). Compared with controls, experimental subjects rated the value of the foods in a way corresponding more closely with the specific classification presented to them. Ratings of pleasantness, however, showed no such consistent effects. These findings are interpreted in terms of models of attitudinal judgement concerned with factors influencing the salience to individuals of different stimulus attributes. Implications for the effects of selective information on judgements are discussed, with specific reference to advertising and nutrition education.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Smoking, seat-belt use and perception of health risks.

As part of a study of perception of risks involved in health-related activities, 159 students (aged 16-21 years) rated 15 such activities in terms of perceived benefit, perceived risk, perceived likelihood of mishap and acceptability of present level of risk. After exclusion of 28 ex-smokers, subjects were classified into smokers vs. non-smokers, users vs. non-users of seat-belts, males vs. females and first-borns vs. later borns. There were various sex differences but few effects of birth order. Smokers tended to see a less unfavourable trade-off in terms of benefits as against risks for cigarette smoking than did non-smokers. This generalized to their ratings of pot smoking and alcoholic drinks. Non-users of seat-belts were distinguishable from users mainly in seeing greater risk and likelihood of mishap in preventive health measures such as vaccination.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1982

The addict's perceptions of their own drug-taking: implications for the treatment of drug dependence.

The attitudes, beliefs and expectations of the addict have received surprisingly little research attention. The present study looks at the relationship between the addict's perception of their own drug taking and their behaviour in treatment. The subjects who took part in the study were receiving treatment at a London drug dependence unit: 60 were inpatients, 40 were outpatients. All completed an attitude questionnaire and a personality inventory, the EPQ). Several attitudinal differences were found between inpatient and outpatient groups, the outpatients being more generally resistant to the prospect of giving up drugs. Among the inpatients, those subjects who saw their addiction as a sort of sickness were least likely to remain in treatment. The attitude items related more clearly to the addict's behaviour in treatment than did the personality measures. The implications of these findings for the treatment of drug addicts are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1980

Drug attitudes and discrimination between drugs among a group of English schoolchildren.

This study investigates the attitudes of a group of 185 London schoolchildren towards a number of legal and illegal drugs, and examines the ways in which they discriminate between these drugs. Heroin and LSD were seen as the most dangerous drugs, and alcohol and cigarettes as the safest. Subjects who had a negative attitude towards drugs in general regarded cannabis, amphetamines, alcohol and tobacco as more dangerous than subjects with a neutral or pro-drug attitude. There was also a sex difference: boys claimed to know more about drugs, were more likely to know a cannabis user and to have been "really drunk" than the girls. The implications of these results for drug and alcohol education programmes are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1979

Dependence, relapse and extinction: a theoretical critique and a behavioral examination.

Re-examines the "decay of extinction" notion proposed by Hunt and Matarazzo (1970) to account for relapse in the treatment of alcoholism and dependence disorders. The attempt to reduce complex relapse behaviors to a simple curve is criticized both from the point of view of using group data to describe an individual process and the nature of cumulative data itself. Because individual differences are marked, a simple group curve cannot describe the process of relapse. A behavioral examination then is presented, based on records of the drinking behavior of 79 alcoholics over a 12-month period after treatment. The main finding is that there are marked individual differences in the process of relapse. Furthermore, the frequency of heavy drinking seems to be most related to a pattern of drinking characterized by marked month-to-month variation in the frequency of heavy drinking rather than a more stable pattern.

Alcohol Drinking↗