Risk, morality and emotion: social media responses to pregnant women who smoke

The stigma of smoking among women: A systematic review

BACKGROUND

Smoking stigma has been well documented, but little is known regarding its specific features and effects on women. Notably, women face unique social, cultural, and economic challenges that may interact with smoking stigma and impact health outcomes. This review investigates the extent to which smoking women encounter and internalise stigma, while examining the various coping mechanisms they employ to manage these negative experiences.

METHODS

In November 2022, major databases were systematically searched with no time restrictions. After applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, 23 studies (three quantitative and 20 qualitative) met our criteria. We conducted a quality assessment and summarised the findings pertaining to public stigma, self-stigma, and coping strategies.

RESULTS

The stigma about smoking emerges from a variety of sources, such as family, healthcare providers, or internet forums. Women smokers are universally aware of the negative image they have in society. Yet, their experiences and management of the stigma of smoking are shaped by other variables such as cultural background, social class, or motherhood status. Smoking stigma produces ambivalent effects, such as concealment, reduced usage of support services, and to a lesser extent, smoking cessation motivation.

CONCLUSIONS

These results indicate that smoking stigma is an important social justice and public health issue and that further research is needed to better prevent its effects on women's well-being and health behaviours.

Mapping Maternal Health in the New Media Environment: A Scientometric Analysis

BACKGROUND

The new media provides a convenient platform to access, use and exchange health information. And as a special group of health care, maternal health care is still of international concern due to their high mortality rate. Scientific research is a good way to provide advice on how to improve maternal health through stringent reasoning and accurate data. However, the dramatic increase of publications, the diversity of themes, and the dispersion of researchers may reduce the quality of information and increase the difficulty of selection. Thus, this study aims to analyze the research progress on maternal health under the global new media environment, exploring the current research hotspots and frontiers.

METHODS

A scientometric analysis was carried out by CiteSpace5.7.R1. In total, 2270 articles have been further analyzed to explore top countries and institutions, potential articles, research frontiers, and hotspots.

RESULTS

The publications ascended markedly, from 29 in 2008 to 472 publications by 2020. But there is still a lot of room to grow, and the growth rate does not conform to the Price's Law. Research centers concentrated in Latin America, such as the University of Toronto and the University of California. The work of Larsson M, Lagan BM and Tiedje L had high potential influence. Most of the research subjects were maternal and newborn babies, and the research frontiers were distributed in health education and psychological problems. Maternal mental health, nutrition, weight, production technology, and equipment were seemingly hotspots.

CONCLUSION

The new media has almost brought a new era for maternal health, mainly characterized by psychological qualities, healthy and reasonable physical conditions and advanced technology.

Stigma Attached to Smoking Pregnant Women: A Qualitative Insight in the General French Population

INTRODUCTION

Cigarette consumption during pregnancy has major health consequences for women and unborn children. The stigma of smoking during pregnancy might hinder mothers-to-be's access to adequate healthcare and smoking cessation, especially in disadvantaged groups. This qualitative study was designed to describe extensively the public stigma associated with smoking during pregnancy.

METHOD

Participants were French adults recruited from the general population through social networks (N=100). They were asked to answer three pairs of open-ended questions regarding cognitions, emotions and behaviours elicited in the general population by pregnant smoking women. An inductive thematic analysis was performed and inter-judge agreement was computed on 30% of the corpus analysed deductively. Finally, independence (chi-square) between themes and gender, education, parenthood and smoking status was tested.

RESULTS

Themes (n=25) were defined regarding cognitions (n=9, e.g., irresponsible, thoughtless and unmindful, etc.), emotions (n=8, e.g., anger, disgust, etc.) and behaviours (n=8, e.g., inform and persuade, moralise and blame, etc.). Global inter-judge agreement was strong (κ=0.8). No difference was observed in themes according to gender, parental status or education, indicating a heterogenous awareness of stigma. However, some differences were observed according to smoking status (χ2 = 69.59, p = 0.02) (e.g., non-smokers more frequently stressed immorality).

CONCLUSION

The stigma associated with smoking during pregnancy includes various components that might be measured and targeted in interventions to improve access to adequate healthcare and smoking cessation in this specific population.

IMPLICATIONS

This qualitative study explores the stigma that the general French population attaches to pregnant women who smoke. Themes regarding cognitions (e.g., irresponsible, thoughtless and unmindful, etc.), emotions (e.g., anger, disgust, etc.) and behaviours (e.g., inform and persuade, moralise and blame, etc.) were identified. These themes could guide further research regarding scale development and anti-stigma interventions to support smoking cessation.