Smoking is one of the root causes of chronic and fatal diseases and even death. It is already widely known how harmful smoking is to overall health. Quitting smoking is challenging because it can be addictive. This addiction forces people to continue smoking, no matter how dire the consequences are.
However, a study published in the Cochrane Review has highlighted one intervention that has shown promise in helping people quit smoking: financial incentives.
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Its effect is more pronounced in pregnant women
A study conducted by the University of East Anglia showed that financial incentives, whether in the form of cash, vouchers or deposits, help smokers quit. This is even more promising for pregnant women who smoke. After receiving the financial reward, he stopped smoking, and not just temporarily.
It was tested in different age groups, not just pregnant women. It’s just that pregnant women were the most likely to quit smoking compared to all other women. Pregnant women who received cash were twice as likely to quit smoking as those who did not. Smoking is also a cause of major pregnancy complications such as stillbirth and miscarriage, which may increase the importance of this financial reward. Furthermore, financial rewards also prevent these pregnant women from smoking again after giving birth, which represents a long-term behavior change.
Understanding the ‘cash’ motivation
Cash is a great motivation that can help people recover from drug addiction.
Co-author Jamie Hartman-Boyce said, “There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that this intervention is working on psychological reward systems in the brain, which we know are heavily associated with nicotine addiction. Has happened.”
As the study authors explained, financial rewards speak to the human mind as a type of reward. This triggers the brain’s reward system. The author linked this phenomenon to what nicotine does to the human brain – it makes people feel good, which leads to an addiction. Therefore, when people try to quit smoking, they experience withdrawal symptoms and miss out on feeling the “feel-good” effects. In a way, cash helps replace the beneficial effects of nicotine. Financial rewards associated with materialistic goods may motivate people to quit smoking.
This is even more relevant for pregnant women. They are aware of the terrible ill effects of smoking, but this cash prize could be the final incentive for them.
“So, it’s not like these people could have quit anyway and then they got paid and they decided to do that,” Jamie Hartman-Boyce said. A lot of people in these studies have tried to quit multiple times, they really wanted to quit and weren’t able to do so, and this (cash reward) helped them.
Also read: Frustrated with low income? Study Says This Habit May Be the Invisible Culprit
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice.
