An education program for parents of children with asthma: differences in attendance between smoking and nonsmoking parents

• Published in: American journal of public health (1971) Vol. 86; no. 2; pp. 246 - 248
• Main Authors: Fish, L, Wilson, S R, Latini, D M, Starr, N J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC Am Public Health Assoc 01-02-1996; American Public Health Association
• Subjects: Adult; Asthma; Asthma - prevention & control; Attendance; Attitude to Health; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child, Preschool; Children; Children & youth; Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma; Confidence Intervals; Cooperative Behavior; Education; Emergency medical care; Enrollments; Ethnicity; Factors; Families & family life; Female; Health Education; Health maintenance organizations; HMOs; Humans; Male; Medical sciences; Morbidity; Odds Ratio; Parents; Parents & parenting; Parents - psychology; Pneumology; Programmes; Public health; Regression analysis; Smoking; Smoking - psychology; Tobacco smoke; United States; North America; America; Human; Allergy; Immunopathology; Participation; Sanitary program; Respiratory disease; Parent; Tobacco smoking; Health education; Asthma; Obstructive pulmonary disease; Child; Public health
• ISSN: 0090-0036; 1541-0048
• DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.86.2.246

We studied smoking status in relation to parental attendance at an asthma education program for child patients of a health maintenance organization. Nonattendance rates were 24%, 42%, and 78% in nonsmoking, one-smoker, and two-or-more-smoker families, respectively, and 33% overall. Only the number of smokers (odds ratio [OR] = 3.1; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.8, 5.3) and perceived adverse impact of asthma on the family (OR = 0.4; 95% CI = 0.2, 0.9) were retained in a multivariate model that correctly classified 73% of families; demographic characteristics, frequency of asthma symptoms, and health care use were rejected. There was a tendency for smoking parents to deny that their child had asthma (17% among families with two or more smokers; 9% among nonsmoking families). Asthma education programs may fail to involve parents who smoke.