Pediatricians have frequent interactions with parents of infants and young children who would not otherwise have contact with the medical profession. The major goal of this project is the initial development of effective methods of providing smoking prevention and smoking cessation advice in pediatrician's offices.
The specific aims are: 1) to identify the current attitudes and activities of pediatricians as these relate to providing smoking prevention and smoking cessation advice to both parents and children; 2) to identify the current attitudes, perceived needs and smoking behavior of parents visiting their child's pediatricians, as these relate to their pediatrician providing them with smoking prevention or smoking cessation advice; 3) to develop protocols for pediatricians to use in their offices to help prevent the onset of smoking and to reduce the prevalence of smoking among both parents and children.
These specific aims will be achieved by: 1) surveying all pediatricians (n-90) in Vermont by mail and phone, using a questionnaire we have pretested among pediatricians in Maine; 2) interviewing twenty pediatricians in-depth concerning their smoking prevention and smoking cessation activities in practices randomly selected from those of the pediatricians responding to the survey; and 3) interviewing 600 parents visiting their child's pediatrician in 12 practices randomly selected from those of the respondent pediatricians. We will use the results from survey of pediatricians, the in-depth interviews with pediatricians and the interviews with parents to devise the educational objectives and content of a smoking cessation intervention for pediatricians to use in their offices for the parents of the children they treat.
