Learning Objectives: Describe the development of an intervention for parents of youth smokers and qualitative results for the pilot.
Abstract: Tobacco use among youth is a major concern as youth risk addiction, short-term, and long-term health consequences. One of 5 middle school children and 1 of 3 high school children put themselves at risk from frequent smoking. However, 75% report attempts to quit. Unfortunately, only 13% are estimated to quit successfully. Few successful adolescent smoking cessation programs are available to teens; none involve their parents. Kick-It: Parents Helping their Kids Quit Smoking was designed to intervene with parents of smoking teens to educate them on how to motivate and support their child’s smoking cessation. The newsletters target parental behaviors consistent with support of their child’s smoking cessation and appropriate to their child’s stage of change for tobacco cessation (communication about tobacco use, parental monitoring of tobacco use and association with smoking peers, provision of medical/pharmacological assistance). Parents are the target audience for the newsletters; newsletter content is based on social cognitive strategies, decisional balance, processes of change, and motivational interviewing. Each newsletter includes four components; role model stories exercises, information, and communication tips derived from the techniques of motivational interviewing. Preliminary analysis of qualitative data from a pilot of newsletters with parents of adolescent smokers suggests that parents are using the communication tips in the newsletters to improve their communications with their smoking teens. Parents report that the newsletters have given them a better understanding of the addictive nature of tobacco, the cyclical process of smoking cessation, and their role in the process. Parents report increased confidence and less anxiety.
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