Providing Antismoking Socialization to Children After Quitting Smoking: Does It Help Parents Stay Quit?

Purpose: To test whether an antismoking parenting program provided to parents who had quit smoking for ≥24 hours increased parents' likelihood of remaining abstinent 2 and 3 years postbaseline.

Design: Two-group randomized controlled trial with 3-year follow-up.

Setting: Eleven states (Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, and Vermont).

Participants: Five hundred seventy-seven adults (286 treatment and 291 control) who had smoked ≥10 cigarettes daily at baseline, had quit smoking for ≥24 hours after calling a Quitline, and were parents of an 8- to 10-year-old child; 358 (62%) completed the 2-year follow-up interview, and 304 (53%) completed the 3-year follow-up interview.

Intervention: Theory-driven, home-based, self-help parenting program.

Measures: Sociodemographic, smoking history, and 30-day point prevalence.

Analysis: Multivariable regression analyses tested for group differences in 30-day abstinence. Attriters were coded as having relapsed.

Results: Between-group differences in abstinence rates were 5.6% and 5.9% at 2 and 3 years, respectively. Treatment group parents had greater odds of abstinence, an effect that was significant only at the latter time point (odds ratio [OR] = 1.49, P = .075 at 2 years; OR = 1.70, P = .026 at 3 years).

Conclusions: This study obtained preliminary evidence that engaging parents who recently quit smoking as agents of antismoking socialization of children has the potential to reduce the long-term odds of relapse.