title: An education program for parents of children with asthma: differences in attendance between smoking and nonsmoking parents.
abstract: We studied smoking status in relation to parental attendance at an asthma education program for child patients of a health maintenance organization. Nonattendance rates were 24%, 42%, and 78% in nonsmoking, one-smoker, and two-or-more-smoker families, respectively, and 33% overall. Only the number of smokers (odds ratio [OR] = 3.1; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.8, 5.3) and perceived adverse impact of asthma on the family (OR = 0.4; 95% CI = 0.2, 0.9) were retained in a multivariate model that correctly classified 73% of families; demographic characteristics, frequency of asthma symptoms, and health care use were rejected. There was a tendency for smoking parents to deny that their child had asthma (17% among families with two or more smokers; 9% among nonsmoking families). Asthma education programs may fail to involve parents who smoke.
authors.affiliation: Department of Allergy and Immunology, Group Health, Inc, Minneapolis, Minn, USA.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fish
authors.forename: S R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Latini
authors.forename: N J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Starr
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001249:Asthma / Q000517:prevention & control*; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016017:Odds Ratio; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology*