Those answering yes were then asked whether they currently smoked cigarettes every day, on some days, or not at all. Finally, those who reported currently selleck chemical smoking reported how many cigarettes they typically smoked on each day that they smoked. Responses to the yes/no questions were used to categorize individuals as never-smokers (those who answered no to the ever smoked 100 cigarettes question), former smokers (those who answered yes to the ever smoked question but not at all to currently smoking), and current smokers (those who answered yes to the 100 cigarette question and either every day or some days to the current smoking question). Current Psychological Distress Participants reported experiences of generalized psychological distress over the past thirty days using the K6 questionnaire (Kessler et al.

, 2002). Participants were given the prompt ��How often did you experience each over the last 30 days?�� For each of six symptoms of psychological distress (so sad that nothing could cheer you up, nervous, restless or fidgety, hopeless, that everything was an effort, and worthless), participants responded on a 5-point item response format ranging from ��all of the time�� to ��none of the time.�� These six items had good internal consistency (�� = .86). The items were reverse scored so that higher numbers indicated higher levels of psychological distress, and the mean of the six items was computed as the generalized measure of psychological distress. Demographics A variety of demographic features were assessed.

Relevant to the analyses reported here, participants reported gender, age, education, and income (although there were missing data on the income variable [approximately 7% of the sample; the proportion of respondents missing data for income did not differ by race/ethnicity], income significantly predicted smoking variables, even with education included in the model as an additional socioeconomic status metric. Therefore, all analyses included income as a covariate. Analyses without the income variable showed the same pattern of results). Education and income both differed by race. Analysis without the demographic covariates had the same pattern of results as the analyses reported here. Analysis Strategy All reported analyses were conducted in STATA version 10 (STATA Corp., College Station, TX).

Analyses used STATA’s survey design features to incorporate the HINTS sampling weights, which account for the sampling design, population oversampling, and nonresponse patterns in the dataset (additional information on the sampling weights can be Dacomitinib found in Cantor et al., 2009). Prior to conducting the main data analyses reported here, we tested for differences in reported relations between variables as a function of survey mode (using techniques described by National Cancer Institute, 2009). None of the hypothesis testing analyses were influenced by survey mode.