The results of the current study broadly suggest that posttraumat

The results of the current study broadly suggest that posttraumatic stress symptoms, even among smokers without the full diagnosis of PTSD, play a role in potentially exacerbating anxious responding to bodily sensations. It may be important to address posttraumatic stress symptoms prior to quitting in order to lessen anxiety symptoms to somatic stress. Such intervention tactics could possibly view more improve cessation success among smokers with posttraumatic stress symptoms. This study has a number of limitations worthy of comment. First, this community sample was comprised of a relatively homogeneous sample in terms of racial/ethnic composition. It would be important for future work to replicate and extend these findings among more diverse clinical samples.

Notably, although no gender differences were noted in the present investigation, future examination of these findings among larger samples is necessary to clarify potential gender differences with regard to smoking cessation and anxious responding to CO2-enriched air laboratory paradigms (e.g., Brown, Lejuez, Kahler, & Strong, 2002). Second, participants were trauma-exposed smokers reporting low overall levels of posttraumatic stress symptoms, with few participants meeting current diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Thus, the present investigation may serve only as preliminary test of the interactive effect of posttraumatic stress and cigarette deprivation/smoking as usual with respect to anxious responding, until further replication and extension of this work is conducted among participants meeting diagnostic criteria for PTSD.

It also is possible that the observed effect is not specific to posttraumatic stress symptoms per se and therefore may be more broadly applicable to anxiety and other types of negative mood (Vujanovic & Zvolensky, 2009). Third, trauma exposure and posttraumatic stress symptom severity were indexed with the PDS (Foa, 1995), a self-report measure. It would be important for future work to replicate and extend these findings using interview-based measures of trauma and posttraumatic stress, such as the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (Blake et al., 1995). This type of additional assessment would provide a more detailed description Cilengitide of the nature of traumatic events among the sample. Fourth, the sample evidenced relatively low levels of nicotine dependence. Since nicotine dependence has been associated with self-reported intensity of nicotine withdrawal symptoms (Hughes, 2007), it is possible that the lower levels of dependence reported by this sample attenuated the hypothesized effects of the cigarette deprivation group. Fifth, DSM-IV substance use disorders were not formally assessed in the present study.

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