Relationship partners often engage in similar health behaviors such as dietary intake, exercise habits, and substance use, blog of sinaling pathways including smoking (Meyler, Stimpson, & Peek, 2007). Estimates of married smokers who have a smoking partner (i.e., dual-smoker couples) range from about one third in a sample of newly married couples (Homish & Leonard, 2005) to two thirds in a sample of low-income pregnant women (Kendrick et al., 1995). Persons�� health risks are amplified due to exposure to both their own and partner��s smoking (Reardon, 2007; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2006). Coupled with the fact that quit rates are lower and relapse rates are higher among dual-smoker couples (Ferguson, Bauld, Chesterman, & Judge, 2005; Garvey, Bliss, Hitchcock, Heinold, & Rosner, 1992), intervention is needed.

A review by Palmer, Baucom, and McBride (2000) concludes that having a smoking partner is a significant threat to abstinence. Achieving cessation in this group is a major public health challenge as most interventions that have focused on couples and attempted to leverage spousal influence and support to enhance quitting have met with negative results (Cohen, Gottleib, & Underwood, 2000; McBride et al., 2004). We are unaware of an intervention developed specifically for dual-smoker couples. New insights on couple-based strategies that enhance quitting are needed to meet this public health challenge. Most models of health behavior describe perceptions of one��s own health risks as a major factor underlying motivation to change behavior (Aiken, Gerend, Jackson, & Ranby, 2012).

This is especially true in the smoking literature in which strong positive associations exist between risk perceptions and desire to quit among current smokers (Dillard, McCaul, & Klein, 2006; Norman, Conner, & Bell, 1999). Smoking, however, has direct health risks not only for the individual but also for the partner. Hence, beliefs about how smoking affects one��s partner are important to consider in motivating desire to quit and in understanding maintenance of cessation. This study examined associations between desire to quit, expressed by partners in dual-smoker relationships, and respondents�� perceptions of own and partner��s risk of disease, beliefs about damage to health from smoking, and worry about negative health outcomes.

Distinct from a belief or judgment about risk for disease, worry captures a more affective aspect of possible future negative health consequences. Indeed, worry about developing a smoking-related disease may be an even more important predictor of contemplation to quit smoking than perceived risk (Magnan, Koblitz, Zielke, & McCaul, 2009). We examined Anacetrapib concordance of beliefs, attitudes, and desires within couples to understand associations between relationship partners. We hypothesized that beliefs about harm to self and harm to one��s partner would be related to one��s own desire to quit (McCaul et al., 2006).