How will we close the gap in smoking rates for pregnant Indigenous women?

Interventions for Indigenous people need to be culturally secure and locally tailored in order to increase acceptability and accessibility.4,5,9 Involving local people in developing and tailoring intervention resources to the local context is critical for improving cultural appropriateness, building ownership and enhancing a sense of autonomy, all of which are important in successful cessation.10

Smoking cessation guidelines for pregnant women recommend a systematic approach to cessation where every woman is asked about her smoking status, with smokers followed up and supported to quit in a respectful manner.11 Health professionals may be reluctant to repeatedly assess smoking status due to concerns that it may be deleterious to their relationship with women and the women’s engagement with care.9,12-14 However, most Indigenous women expect antenatal care to include smoking cessation advice.15 Systems to support routine assessment and support should be included in intervention trials.

Indigenous women’s knowledge of specific risks of smoking while pregnant is often vague.9,15,16 Providing information on the harms of smoking and benefits of cessation may motivate some women to attempt to quit. Discussing the woman’s role as a mother and a role model for her family may be more motivating for some Indigenous women than health risk narratives and should be addressed in intervention trials.

Overall, 78% of Indigenous women attend five or more antenatal visits during their pregnancies.2 Providing cessation support through routine antenatal care overcomes barriers to attending separate services.13 A collaborative approach between midwives, Aboriginal Health Workers (AHWs) and doctors, all providing consistent advice and support, will reinforce the importance of cessation. The credibility of medical practitioners may be a significant motivating factor for some women. In cases where midwives provide much of the care, the close relationship and frequent contact allows ongoing support. AHWs’ cultural knowledge and strong links with local families will enhance implementation of cessation support.14 In a survey of Indigenous women, over 70% of women felt that support from these professionals was likely to be helpful.17

The high prevalence of smoking in Indigenous communities has resulted in smoking being “normalised” as a socially acceptable behaviour, with frequent triggers to smoke and cigarettes being readily available.9,16,18 Smoking is important in social relationships, and cessation can lead to feelings of isolation.18,19 Supportive environments for quitting have aided cessation among Indigenous ex-smokers.10 Trialling interventions that incorporate mechanisms to provide a supportive, pro-cessation environment, such as involving household members in supporting women, peer support groups and whole community interventions should be further explored.20

Interventions that incorporate strategies to prevent smoking relapse result in fewer women relapsing in late pregnancy.1 Up to 80% of women who quit during pregnancy relapse within 1 year.21 Specific relapse prevention support should be provided during pregnancy and postpartum, including information about the effects of environmental tobacco smoke on the baby, support to make a smoke-free home and support for household members to quit smoking.21 Relapse prevention strategies have not been examined among Indigenous women and should be included in future trials.

Systematic reviews of antenatal smoking cessation interventions have found that financial rewards contingent on successful smoking abstinence are significantly more effective than other interventions.1 However, their efficacy with Indigenous women has not been tested. Australian surveys indicate that contingency-based rewards are considered likely to be helpful by over 90% of Indigenous women and 83% of their antenatal providers.17,22 This approach should be further explored with Indigenous women.

Surveys of pregnant Indigenous women found that tobacco smokers were more than three times more likely than non-smokers to report cannabis or alcohol use, both of which are risk factors for continued smoking.17 Given the known negative impact of these substances on birth outcomes and the interaction between their use and use of tobacco, interventions should include explicit assessment of other substance use, with support to address these if required.11

A lack of protocols and poor smoking cessation support skills have been identified as barriers to providing cessation support to pregnant Indigenous women.12 Well defined protocols detailing specific procedures, and the role of each provider, may assist in increasing provision of support in routine care.13 Training should cover skills in smoking cessation support, supportive communication and using protocols, as well as recording women’s smoking status, cessation behaviour and support provided, to facilitate consistent advice from all team members.

As smoking cessation support is provided at both the service and individual level, randomisation at the individual level is inappropriate as contamination between groups is likely. Cluster randomised controlled trials with randomisation of dispersed services may reduce this problem but require larger sample sizes and more participating services, increasing costs and logistics challenges. As services and communities may not be willing to be randomly allocated to “usual care”, it may be more appropriate to undertake a head-to-head comparison of two approaches considered likely to be effective.23

Poor adherence to intervention protocols may occur as a result of unsuitable intervention requirements, inadequate staff training, high staff turnover and lack of systems to support the intervention. Smoking among AHWs has also been identified as a potential barrier to implementation and would need to be addressed as part of the intervention.14,16 Strong organisational support for the implementation and evaluation of strategies is critical to supporting adherence. Collaborative development of the intervention and study design with Indigenous services and pilot studies to assess acceptability and feasibility of the research will help successful implementation.