Relationship between smoking and marital adjustment & social support among women with spouses experiencing alcohol/substance use disorders.

Background: Women's smoking is a serious and growing problem worldwide. Determining the variables related to smoking to stop this increase is important for the protection of women in special groups with psychological and social risks such as dependent relatives. It was aimed to determine the smoking use of women with dependent spouses and its relationship with marital adjustment and perception of social support.

Methods: The research is a cross-sectional study. Population of the study consists of 1.500 women who are the spouses of men with the diagnosis of alcohol/substance use disorder and alcohol withdrawal syndrome. The population was calculated with a 20% prevalence 4% margin of error and a 95% confidence interval, and the sample size was 306. The research was carried out between November 2019 and July 2021. Statistical significance level was accepted as P < 0.05. Chi-square Test was used in the analysis of categorical data. Logistic Regression Analysis was used in multivariate analysis.

Results: The spouses of 250 people experiencing alcohol or substance use disorder were included in the study. The coverage of the research is 81.7%. Smoking frequency of women is 65.2%. In bivariate analysis, women's smoking was found to be statistically significant with the variables of spouse's addiction type, age, longest place of residence, educational status, history of chronic disease, need for mental support, and presence of hobbies(p < 0.05). In multivariate analysis, it was observed that each unit increase in age, social support score and marital adjustment score was associated with 1.08 (95% CI: 1.01-1.15), 1.35 (95% CI: 1.18-1.55) and 1.12 (95% CI: 1.00-1.12) times increase in smoking risk, respectively.

Conclusions: In this study, two out of three women with spouses experiencing alcohol/substance use disorder were found to smoke. It has been determined that the risk of smoking is high in women whose spouses have substance use disorder, have a high education level, have a chronic illness, need mental support, do not have a hobby, have a low perception of social support, and have an incompatible marriage. High rate of smoking in this population indicates need for preventive studies with people experiencing alcohol/substance use disorder and their relatives. In addition, it would be beneficial to develop smoking cessation programs with cognitive-behavioral interventions and that strengthen psycho-social support systems in addition to pharmacological treatments.