Enabling parents who smoke to prevent their children from initiating smoking: results from a 3-year intervention evaluation.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate effects of a home-based antismoking socialization program on the initiation of smoking among children whose parents smoke.


METHODS
Three-year randomized controlled trial.


METHODS
Parents who were current smokers and had a child in the third grade who had not tried smoking were eligible; 873 parents-offspring pairs met these criteria, completed baseline interviews, and were randomly assigned to the intervention or control condition; 776 children (89%) completed an interview 3 years after baseline and were included in the study.


METHODS
During 3 months, the intervention group (n = 371) received 5 printed activity guides, parenting tip sheets, child newsletters, and incentives; this group also received a booster activity guide 1 year later. The control group (n = 405) received fact sheets about smoking.


RESULTS
Initiation of smoking (first instance of puffing on a cigarette) was reported by 12% vs 19% of children in the intervention vs control groups. Logistic regression analysis indicated that children in the control condition had twice the odds of reporting initiation of smoking as children in the intervention condition (adjusted odds ratio, 2.16; P<.001), after adjusting for child sex, parent sex, parent race, parent educational achievement, child's best friends' smoking, parent smoking rate at baseline, and parent cessation status.


CONCLUSIONS
Children in the pre-initiation phase of smoking who receive antismoking socialization from their parents are less likely to initiate smoking, even if their parents smoke.
Jackson
Christine
C
Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, Chapel Hill Center, 1516 E. Franklin Street, Ste. 200, Chapel Hill, NC 27514, USA. cjackson@pire.org
Dickinson
Denise
D
D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents / Q000193:education; D010379:Peer Group; D015397:Program Evaluation; D000074606:Smoking Prevention; D012951:Socialization; D014481:United States