A randomized trial of a brief intervention to promote smoking cessation for parents during child hospitalization

Background Parental smoking significantly increases the risk of child hospitalization for multiple illnesses. Parenting smokers may not have easy access to smoking cessation services elsewhere and a few interventions with this population in the inpatient setting have shown promising results. Methods We sought to evaluate the efficacy of a brief intervention with smoking parents on smoking cessation rates after child hospitalization with a randomized, controlled trial. Results Sixty smoking parents participated in the study. The majority of study participants were uninsured women under age 30 who smoked approximately half of a pack per day. There were no statistically significant differences between control and intervention groups for our outcomes. However, 45% (CI: 33–57%) of all participants reported at least one quit attempt during the 2‐month study period and 18% (CI: 10–30%) of participants were quit at study conclusion. Conclusions Willingness to quit smoking was much higher than expected in this population of parenting smokers. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2013; 48:608–613. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.