Studying Adolescent Smoking in Real Time: Use of Ecological Momentary Assessment

摘要

Adolescent cigarette smoking remains a significant public health problem and a major cause of cardiovascular disease later in life. Understanding the processes underlying adolescent smoking initiation, progression, and cessation may allow for improved interventions in this population for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. Theoretical models of smoking initiation and relapse suggest that dynamic processes, such as changes in affect state or outcome expectancies, should proximally cause changes in smoking behavior. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methods provide an opportunity to examine these types of dynamic processes. EMA involves measuring a smoker's experiences and behaviors as they are occurring in real time in the natural environment. The results of recent studies that have used EMA to examine adolescent smoking are reviewed in this article. The findings provide important information about how dynamic processes involving affect states and external contexts may influence smoking among adolescents. EMA studies may substantially impact theoretical models of adolescent smoking and future treatment interventions.