Linda Ringlever

l.ringlever@pwo.ru.nl

Title project:
Evaluation of a smoking prevention program for smoking parents of asthmatic children

Abstract:
A successful program in the U.S. for smoking parents of primary school children, Smoke-free Kids, will be applied to a Dutch sample of smoking parents of children with asthmatic symptoms. Research has shown that adolescents with asthma smoke as much as their non-asthmatic peers. Since smoking is particularly harmful for asthmatics, it is important to offer effective prevention programs to diminish the number of smoking asthmatic adolescents. Current prevention programs focus on adolescents in secondary schools. However, there is substantial evidence that adolescents’ responsiveness to smoking prevention programs diminishes once they have initiated smoking. Therefore we will conduct a RCT among parents of 9-10 year olds. With this young aged group we can be positive that these children have not initiated smoking yet. The longitudinal design of this project offers an opportunity to fully scrutinize the effects of the program on the initiation of smoking. The focus on smoking parents is chosen, as ample research has shown that this group is less involved in anti-smoking socialization, which is found to be effective in preventing children from smoking. Two hypotheses will be tested. First, we expect that parents involved in this program (as compared to controls) will be more involved in constructive communication on smoking topics, have more confidence in discussing smoking matters and greater efficacy to prevent their children from smoking, set and keep stricter household rules against smoking, establish a non-smoking contract with their children, and are more likely to monitor children’s and peers’ smoking-related activities. Second, we expect that children of parents involved in this program will be less likely to experiment with smoking three years post-baseline.