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Featured InterventionistKathleen O’Connell, PhD, RN, FAAN
Dr. O’Connell’s first publication related to smoking was in 1984 on the topic of thiocyanate as a useful biochemical indicator of smoking cessation. Smoking-related issues have been a dominant theme in her over 50 publications to date. Kathleen has studied areas including highly tempting situations for relapse, negative affect and smoking relapse, strategies of long-term smoking abstainers, and has several papers on biochemical measures to confirm smoking abstinence. Dr. O’Connell adopted the framework of reversal theory in the late 1980’s and has built a program of research in this area since then. Within the framework, she has examined tempting situations for smokers, strategies to cope with smoking temptations, and instruments to assess reversal theory states. Dr. O’Connell has received grant support from the National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute and the National Institute of Nursing Research. In 1999, she completed a 6-year study on behaviors and cognitions for resisting the urge to smoke. The acronym developed for this project was RESIST (Responses, Experiences, and Strategies In Smoking Temptations) and yielded a number of publications including two qualitative articles on smokers relating their experiences of quitting and a taxonomy of stop smoking strategies. (See reference list at end bottom of page). Dr. O’Connell recently received funding to extend this work and it is being called PERSIST (Project Examining the Role of Self-Control In Smoking Temptations). In addition, to conducting research and being an educator, Dr. O’Connell is an active member of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco Program Committee (www.srnt.org) and works collaboratively with colleagues across the country in smoking-related research. We are fortunate to have Dr. O’Connell’s professional commitment to addressing the needs of smokers during the quitting process and relapse prevention, all the while bringing a refreshing sense of humor to this important work. Her advice to others in the field – “Veteran smoking researcher Ed Lichtenstein once said, ‘You have to be humble to do research in smoking.’ He was speaking about the difficulty in making accurate predictions about smoking behavior and relapse. While this difficulty makes the work frustrating sometimes, it also makes it exciting. And, I’ve always said that if you can figure out how to get people to quit smoking, you will be able to get them to do anything!” Selected publications from recent research:
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Kathleen O’Connell, PhD, RN,
FAAN, is our featured nurse colleague.
She is currently the Isabel Maitland Stewart Professor of Nursing Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Dr. O’Connell completed her PhD and MA degrees in psychology at the University of Kansas. As a nurse and a psychologist Kathleen brings an important perspective to understanding tobacco use dependence and its treatment.
For 19 years she was a faculty member at the University of Kansas, School of Nursing and held a joint appointment for 11 of those years as a psychologist at the Midwest Research Institute.
In addition, she completed a nationally funded postdoctoral fellowship in psychology at Purdue University.
