Smoking cessation counseling for parents during child hospitalization: a national survey of pediatric nurses.

Objective: Given the central role played by pediatric nurses in intake assessment, discharge planning, and education for families of hospitalized pediatric patients, a child's hospitalization may provide a unique opportunity for counseling parents about smoking. We sought to determine if hospital policies can support nurses in effectively counseling parents about smoking.

Design And Sample: We conducted a national survey of pediatric staff nurses and administrators/educators who were members of the Society of Pediatric Nurses in 2008 (n=888) to explore counseling practices for tobacco control.

Measures: Questionnaires included data on demographics, personal and work environment characteristics, hospital policy characteristics, work attitudes and barriers and the main outcome--5As for smoking cessation counseling--Ask, Advise, Assess, Assist, and Arrange.

Results: Overall, routine screening for household smokers was most common (43%), followed by advice to quit (25%), assessing willingness to quit (19%), assisting with a quit plan (6%), and arranging follow-up contact (3%). Nurses working in hospitals with admission assessments specifically asking about household members who smoke were 7 times more likely than those without such assessments to routinely ask about smoking (OR: 7.2, 95% CI: 4.9-10.5).

Conclusion: Future research should test the efficacy of developing comprehensive hospital-wide policies to deliver smoking cessation for parents during a child's hospitalization.