Smoking behavior and risk perception among the parents of infants in the neonatal intensive care unit

The goal of this study was to explore the prevalence of smoking and attitudes and behaviors relevant to smoking cessation among parents of babies treated in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Participants were 235 mothers and 83 fathers of infants admitted to the NICU of a large, university-base...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nicotine & tobacco research 2008-01, Vol.10 (1), p.47-54
Main Authors: Bock, Beth C., Becker, Bruce M., Borrelli, Belinda
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Environmental Exposure
Female
Health Behavior
Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
Humans
Infant Care - methods
Infant, Newborn
Intensive Care Units, Neonatal
Male
Parent-Child Relations
Parenting - psychology
Parents - psychology
Patient Education as Topic
Risk-Taking
Smoking - psychology
Smoking Cessation - methods
Surveys and Questionnaires
United States
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Summary:The goal of this study was to explore the prevalence of smoking and attitudes and behaviors relevant to smoking cessation among parents of babies treated in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Participants were 235 mothers and 83 fathers of infants admitted to the NICU of a large, university-based hospital. The 38-item survey included questions that assessed smoking status (current, former, never-smoker), motivation to quit, perceived health risks from smoking, and whether or not they received smoking cessation advice or counseling from a health care provider. A total of 26% of all participants were current smokers. Compared with mothers, fathers were more likely to be current smokers (22% vs. 31%) and smoked more cigarettes per day (11.3% vs. 17.2%). Among participants, 57% reported that smoking affected their own health "a little" or "not at all," and 70% believed that others' smoking would affect the baby's health "a little" or "somewhat." Mothers were more likely than fathers to report health care provider intervention for smoking cessation. Indeed, none of the fathers in this study reported being offered assistance with quitting smoking. More than half of smokers were willing to receive counseling for smoking cessation, and health care provider intervention was positively associated with both motivation to quit and perceived health risk to their infant (p
ISSN:1462-2203
1469-994X
DOI:10.1080/14622200701767795