Factors Associated With Quit Intention Among Male Smokers Whose Partner Got Pregnant: An Exploration Study

With a globally growing number of smokers, up to about half of men and one tenth of women are becoming smokers and relatively few stopping, especially in Mainland China.

It has been proved that tobacco is responsible for even more deaths and diseases. Smokers have two to three times mortality in middle age among otherwise similar persons who had never smoked. According to the literature review, smoking has been confirmed to be an important risk factor to coronary heart disease, chronic obstructive lung disease, cancer, stroke, peptic ulcer, peripheral vascular disease, and so on. In addition, tobacco can also increase the incidence rate of cancer in lung, oral cavity, naso-, oro- and hypopharynx, nasal cavity et.al, as well as myeloid leukemia, among smokers.

For the male smokers at their reproductive ages, who is preparing to have a baby with their partners, smoking may negatively influence their reproductive capacity. Sufficient studies found that the quantity and duration of smoking, especially the current smoking is positively associated with the risk of erectile dysfunction. Smoking may increase the risk of a higher risk of developing oligospermia, asthenozoospermia and teratozoospermia for man in the reproductive years, which may lead to the inefficiency of fertilization and even give birth to abnormal fetus. Besides, secondhand Smoking (SHS) exposure also have further and longer negative effects on their female partner and their baby born in the future. The non-smoking population is much more sensitive to the nicotine in the passive smoking than smokers. The SHS may increase the risk of respiratory infections, ear problem, immediate adverse effects on cardiovascular system, CHD, lung cancer and so on to adults. For the children, the passive smoking makes children have a higher chance to get severe asthma, slow lung growth. Hence, children and women live with smokers may have a higher risk of premature death and disease. Besides, newborns whose mothers were exposed to secondhand smoking showed significantly lower scores in the habituation cluster and motor system cluster [16], as well as the delay of neurobehavioral development regardless of socio-demographic, obstetric and pediatric factors. Conclusively, smoking has direct and indirect negative effect to male smokers in reproductive ages themselves and their family members.

Based on the official statistic figures in 2010, about one third of people in China were current smokers, and the number of young smokers is increasing [4]. While most current smokers (83.9%) report having no intention to quit smoking (WHO, 2011). On average, between 60% and 70% of Chinese men continue to smoke into middle age, which is different with the western countries. Hence, finding out a solution to decrease the married reproductive male smoking rate is extremely crucial.

Overall awareness of the health hazards of tobacco has improved in the last 15 years in China, but is still relatively poor. Even there were several patterns of propaganda and education applied in China, the efficiency is not very satisfactory. Hence, an effective education intervention that delivery the health hazards of tobacco to male smokers and secondhand smoking to their wives and baby born in the future should be developed and implemented for reproductive male smokers in China.