Objective: Review and examine existing research, current strategies, and directions for future research on smoking cessation relapse and relapse prevention in pregnancy and postpartum.Methods: A MEDLINE/PubMed search in 2002 and 2003 for articles containing the key words "smoking," "pregnancy," "cessation," and "cessation relapse prevention" and references of retrieved papers yielded a review of more than 500 articles. Only 14 of these addressed program-based strategies to increase cessation among pregnant women through relapse prevention programs.Conclusion: Although there is much information on the rationale and strategies for smoking cessation for pregnant women, fewer studies exist on how to prevent relapse. Throughout the past decade, tobacco use has remained the single most important modifiable cause of poor pregnancy outcome in the United States. Smoking accounts for 20% of deliveries of infants with low birth weights, 8% of preterm births, and 5% of all perinatal deaths. Smoking during pregnancy and in postpartum contributes to sudden infant death syndrome and changes in brain and nervous system development. The direct medical costs of a complicated birth for a smoker are 66% higher than for nonsmokers. 1 Relapse rates range from 70% to 85% among women who smoke but quit at some time during their pregnancy. A recent 10-year study (1987 to 1996) of 8808 pregnant women and 178,499 nonpregnant women of childbearing age indicated that the prevalence of current smoking has decreased significantly among both pregnant (16.3% to 11.8%) and nonpregnant women (26.7% to 23.6%).2 This drop in smoking over time among pregnant women was primarily caused by the overall decline in smoking initiation rates among women of childbearing age, not by an increased rate of smoking cessation related to pregnancy.Although one fifth of pregnant smokers spontaneously quit by the time of their first antenatal visit, 3 and pregnant women are half as likely as nonpregnant women to be smokers, 2 an estimated 20.4% of women smokers continue smoking throughout their pregnancies. 4 For women who do quit during pregnancy and who received a planned intervention, between 6.2% and 37.2% remained smoke-free. The range of relapse rates is broad because of the varying success of the cessation intervention strategy. Between 29% and 85% of women who get a planned intervention relapse after delivery. 5-16Although there is much information on why and how pregnant women should quit, fewer data exist on how to prevent relapse. This article is a literature review on relapse and relapse prevention in pregnancy; we looked at existing research, current strategies, and directions for future research.

PURPOSE We wanted to explore factors that infl uence Dutch and US physician treatment decisions when nursing home patients with dementia become acutely ill with pneumonia.METHODS Using a qualitative semistructured interview study design, we collected data from 12 physicians in the Netherlands and 12 physicians in North Carolina who care for nursing home patients. Our main outcome measures were perceptions of infl uential factors that determine physician treatment decisions regarding care of demented patients who develop pneumonia.RESULTS Several themes emerged from the study. First, physicians viewed their patient care roles differently. Dutch physicians assumed active, primary responsibility for treatment decisions, whereas US physicians were more passive and deferential to family preferences, even in cases when they considered families' wishes for care as inappropriate. These family wishes were a second theme. US physicians reported a perceived sense of threat from families as infl uencing the decision to treat more aggressively, whereas Dutch physicians revealed a predisposition to treat based on what they perceived was in the best interest of the patient. The third theme was the process of decision making whereby Dutch physicians based decisions on an intimate knowledge of the patient, and American physicians reported limited knowledge of their nursing home patients as a result of lack of contact time.CONCLUSION Physician-perceived care roles regarding treatment decisions are infl uenced by contextual differences in physician training and health care delivery in the United States and the Netherlands. These results are relevant to the debate about optimal care for patients with poor quality of life who lack decision-making capacity.

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PURPOSEWe wanted to explore factors that infl uence Dutch and US physician treatment decisions when nursing home patients with dementia become acutely ill with pneumonia.METHODS Using a qualitative semistructured interview study design, we collected data from 12 physicians in the Netherlands and 12 physicians in North Carolina who care for nursing home patients. Our main outcome measures were perceptions of infl uential factors that determine physician treatment decisions regarding care of demented patients who develop pneumonia. RESULTSSeveral themes emerged from the study. First, physicians viewed their patient care roles differently. Dutch physicians assumed active, primary responsibility for treatment decisions, whereas US physicians were more passive and deferential to family preferences, even in cases when they considered families' wishes for care as inappropriate. These family wishes were a second theme. US physicians reported a perceived sense of threat from families as infl uencing the decision to treat more aggressively, whereas Dutch physicians revealed a predisposition to treat based on what they perceived was in the best interest of the patient. The third theme was the process of decision making whereby Dutch physicians based decisions on an intimate knowledge of the patient, and American physicians reported limited knowledge of their nursing home patients as a result of lack of contact time.CONCLUSION Physician-perceived care roles regarding treatment decisions are infl uenced by contextual differences in physician training and health care delivery in the United States and the Netherlands. These results are relevant to the debate about optimal care for patients with poor quality of life who lack decision-making capacity.

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