Smoking behaviour in young families. Do parents take practical measures to prevent passive smoking by the children?

Abstract

Objective: To investigate smoking behaviour in young families.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Mother and child health centres in Oslo, Norway.

Subjects: The families of 1,046 children attending the health centres for 6-weeks-, 2- or 4- year well child visits.

Main outcome measures: Daily smoking, smoking quantity and practical measures taken by the parents to prevent passive smoking among the children as assessed by parental reports.

Results: In 48% of the families at least one adult was smoking. 33% of the smoking parents smoked more than ten cigarettes per day. 47% of the smoking families reported that they did not smoke indoors.

Conclusions: The parents were less likely to smoke if they were more than 35 years of age, had a child aged less than one year, had a spouse/co-habitee or had a long education. Smoking parents smoked less if they had a spouse/co-habitee, had a child aged less than one year or had few children. Smoking parents were more often careful and did not smoke indoors if they had a child aged less than one year, had a spouse/co-habitee, did not have a smoking spouse/co-habitee or smoked a low number of cigarettes per day.