Smoking in men and women with type 2 diabetes: A qualitative gender-sensitive exploration of barriers to smoking cessation among people with type 2 diabetes

Objectives: Despite growing evidence of the impact of smoking on diabetes complications, people with type 2 diabetes still smoke at high rates and little is known about the specific barriers to quit smoking in this group. The purpose of this article is to explore the perception of smoking, and motivation and barriers to quit among smokers with type 2 diabetes. This exploratory study will help designing a smoking cessation intervention tailored to the needs of people with type 2 diabetes. We hypothesize both that living with diabetes and gender may raise additional difficulties to quit smoking. Setting: The qualitative exploratory research included ten in-depth semi-structured individual interviews and five focus groups conducted in an Ambulatory Care University Hospital in Switzerland. The thematic analysis was conducted with a gender-sensitive focus. Participants: Both current and former smokers recruited from the ambulatory clinic and the community took part in the qualitative interviews. We restricted the analysis to 21 current smokers only. Results: The sample included 12 men and 9 women with type 2 diabetes, having a mean age of 59.4 years, who had diabetes for an average of 9 years with a mean HbA1c of 7.4%. We found that harmful effects of tobacco were superficially understood, and participants used several patterns of thinking to minimize the risks. The relation between tobacco and diabetes was poorly known. Readiness to change was related to personal self-image and meaningful engagement in life and social relationships. Barriers could be organized into three groups: dependence, psychological habits and social barriers. Barriers were markedly shaped by gender and living with diabetes. Conclusions: Results suggest that “one -fits-all” smoking cessation interventions do not satisfy the needs of type 2 diabetic smokers. Personalized smoking cessation interventions should be preferred and should pursue positive psychological outcomes addressing contextual factors.