Smoking is one of the leading causes of chronic and fatal disease and even death. It is already widely known how harmful smoking is for general well-being. Quitting smoking is difficult because of how addictive it can be. This addiction makes people continue to smoke, no matter how distressing the consequences.
A study published in the Cochrane Review, however, sheds light on an intervention that has shown promise in helping people quit smoking: financial incentives.
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The effect is more pronounced in pregnant women
Research by the University of East Anglia has shown that financial incentives, whether in the form of money, vouchers or deposits, help people quit smoking. This is even more promising for pregnant women who smoke. They quit smoking, and not only temporarily, after receiving a financial reward.
Not only on pregnant women, it has been tested in different age groups. It’s just that pregnant women were the most likely to quit smoking. Those pregnant women who received the money were twice as likely to quit smoking as those who did not. Smoking is also a cause of serious pregnancy complications, such as stillbirths and miscarriages, which can increase the importance of this financial reward. Moreover, financial rewards also prevent pregnant women from smoking again after giving birth, demonstrating long-term behavioral changes.
Understanding the “cash” motivation.
Cash is a great motivator that can help people overcome the forces of addiction.
Co-author Jamie Hartman-Boyce said: “There is a lot of evidence that this intervention works on the psychological reward systems in the brain, which we know are heavily involved in nicotine addiction.”
As the study’s author noted, financial rewards speak to the human mind as a form of reward. This triggers the brain’s reward system. The author attributed this phenomenon to what nicotine does to the human brain – it makes people feel good, forming an addiction. So when people try to quit, they experience withdrawal symptoms and lose that “feel good” effect. In a way, money helps replace the beneficial effects of nicotine. Financial rewards are associated with material goods that can motivate people to quit smoking.
It is all the more important for pregnant women. They know the terrible side effects of smoking, but this cash reward could be the last push they need.
Jamie Hartman-Boyce said: “So it’s not that these people could have quit anyway and then they got the money and decided to do it. A lot of people in these studies have tried to quit many times, they really wanted to quit, but they couldn’t, and this (cash reward) helped them.”
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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice.
