Objective: To determine if mothers receiving a smoking cessation intervention emphasizing health risks of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) for their children have a higher quit rate than 1) mothers receiving routine smoking cessation advice or 2) a control group.
Design: Randomized, controlled trial.
Setting: Primary care center in a large urban children's hospital.
Intervention: Four hundred seventy-nine mothers were randomly assigned to a smoking cessation intervention either aimed at their child's health or their own health, or to a control group receiving safety information.
Outcome measures: Smoking status, stage of change, cigarettes/day, location smoking occurred, and knowledge of ETS effects.
Results: Complete data (baseline and both follow-ups) were available for 166 subjects. There was no impact of group assignment on the quit rate, cigarettes/day, or stage of change. The Child Health Group intervention had a sustained effect on location where smoking reportedly occurred (usually outside) and on improved knowledge of ETS effects.
Conclusions: Further research is needed to devise more effective methods of using the pediatric health care setting to influence adult smoking behaviors.