The Evaluation Of The Effects Of Passive Smoking On Children's Health With Detection Of Urine Cotinine Levels

Assessing parental awareness and concerns about children's tobacco smoke exposure: a community-based analysis

BACKGROUND

Information regarding children's exposure to tobacco smoke, posing significant risks, is usually reliant on parental reports. We aimed to adopt the scale of parental perception of children's tobacco smoke exposure (PPE) into Turkish, and investigate its correlation with sociodemographic factors.

METHODS

The language and cultural adaptation of the original scale was carried out according to the international guidelines. The participants consisted of 250 females and 250 males living in Samsun province who are over the age of 18, have children younger than 18 years old, without any visual impairment or communication barrier. The survey forms were administered through face-to-face interviews between November 2022 and April 2023.

RESULTS

Mean age of the parents was 36.7 ± 6.9 years. A total of 179 (35.5%) parents were current smokers, and 44% of the households had at least one parent who reported smoking indoors. The mean score of PPE scale was 4.9 ± 1.2. Female sex, parents with higher education, with healthcare profession and with no history of smoking had better awareness about children exposure to smoke. A positive correlation was found between educational level and PPE scale score (r = 0.13; p = 0.004). Parents not allowing smoking indoors or in the car, and those not bringing children to restaurants where smoking was allowed, had higher PPE scores.

CONCLUSIONS

There is a need for multidisciplinary and community-based interventions, with more effective enforcement and monitoring of smoking bans in enclosed spaces and children's play areas.

Association between objective measures and parent-reported measures of child tobacco smoke exposure: A secondary data analysis of four trials

INTRODUCTION

Tobacco smoke exposure (TSE) harms children and adults. Studies of childhood TSE exposure often relies on parental reports, but may benefit from objective measures. The objective of our study was to study the relationship between reported and objective measures of TSE.

METHODS

We analyzed data from four intervention trials, conducted in clinical or community settings, to identify objective measures most closely associated with parent-reported measures and the optimal set of parent-reported measures for predicting objective measures. We also assessed whether there was a learning curve in reported exposure over time, and the importance of replicate biomarker measures.

RESULTS

Correlations between objective and parent-reported measures of child TSE were modest at best, ranging from zero to 0.41. Serum cotinine and urinary cotinine were most strongly associated with parental reports. Parental questions most closely related to biomarkers were number of cigarettes and home smoking rules; together these formed the best set of predictive questions. No trial included all objective measures and all questions, precluding definitive statements about relative advantages. Within-subject repeatability of biomarker measures varied across studies, suggesting that direct pilot data are needed to assess the benefit of replicate measurements.

CONCLUSIONS

Improvements in objective and parent-reported child exposure measurements are needed to accurately monitor child TSE, evaluate efforts to reduce such exposure, and better protect child health.