Child health nurses' roles and attitudes in reducing children's tobacco smoke exposure

Primary Care Healthcare Professionals' Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Towards Promoting the Reduction of Children's Secondhand Smoke Exposure: A Mixed-Methods Review and Synthesis

INTRODUCTION

Secondhand smoke exposure (SHSe) leads to increased mortality and morbidity. Primary care healthcare professionals (HCPs) are well placed to support patients to reduce SHSe. This paper explores HCPs': (1) knowledge around SHSe; (2) current practices to promote SHSe reduction; (3) beliefs and experiences regarding delivering interventions to reduce SHSe; and (4) identified factors that influence the delivery of SHSe-related interventions.

METHODS

Six electronic databases were searched for relevant literature published January 1980-February 2016. 17 quantitative and 3 qualitative studies were included in this mixed-methods review. Data synthesis followed the method outlined by the Joanna Briggs Institute. This segregated approach involved independent syntheses of the quantitative and qualitative data followed by an overall mixed-methods synthesis.

RESULTS

Primary care HCPs had a basic understanding of the risks associated with SHSe but required training to help them intervene. It was more common for HCPs to ask about SHSe or provide advice than to act to facilitate SHSe reduction. SHSe was viewed as an issue of high importance and considered relevant to the role of the primary care HCPs. However, barriers such as the priority given to the issue and the desire to protect the professional relationship with patients prevented HCPs from intervening around SHSe.

CONCLUSIONS

Primary care HCPs require training, guidance, and support to enable them to intervene and support patients to effectively reduce SHSe.

IMPLICATIONS

This review used rigorous methods to explore the current, global literature on how children's exposure to secondhand smoke is being addressed in primary care settings. The review findings highlight healthcare professionals' need for further training and support, which would enable them to better translate their knowledge of the risks associated with secondhand smoke exposure into actual clinical practices. The review identified a lack of practical action taken to address secondhand smoke exposure, even once it has been identified as an issue.

A systematic review of grandparents' influence on grandchildren's cancer risk factors

Many lifestyle patterns are established when children are young. Research has focused on the potential role of parents as a risk factor for non communicable disease in children, but there is limited investigation of the role of other caregivers, such as grandparents. The aim of this review was to identify and synthesise evidence for any influence grandparents' care practices may have on their grandchildren's long term cancer risk factors. A systematic review was carried out with searches across four databases (MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, PsycINFO) as well as searches of reference lists and citing articles, and Google Scholar. Search terms were based on six areas of risk that family care could potentially influence-weight, diet, physical activity, tobacco, alcohol and sun exposure. All study designs were included, as were studies that provided an indication of the interaction of grandparents with their grandchildren. Studies were excluded if grandparents were primary caregivers and if children had serious health conditions. Study quality was assessed using National Institute for Health and Care Excellence checklists. Grandparent impact was categorised as beneficial, adverse, mixed or as having no impact. Due to study heterogeneity a meta-analysis was not possible. Qualitative studies underwent a thematic synthesis of their results. Results from all included studies indicated that there was a sufficient evidence base for weight, diet, physical activity and tobacco studies to draw conclusions about grandparents' influence. One study examined alcohol and no studies examined sun exposure. Evidence indicated that, overall, grandparents had an adverse impact on their grandchildren's cancer risk factors. The theoretical work in the included studies was limited. Theoretically underpinned interventions designed to reduce these risk factors must consider grandparents' role, as well as parents', and be evaluated robustly to inform the evidence base further.

A Scoping Review of Maternal and Child Health Clinicians Attitudes, Beliefs, Practice, Training and Perceived Self-Competence in Environmental Health

Clinicians regularly assess, diagnose and manage illnesses which are directly or indirectly linked to environmental exposures. Yet, various studies have identified gaps in environmental assessment in routine clinical practice. This review assessed clinicians' environmental health practices, attitudes and beliefs, and competencies and training. Relevant articles were sought using a systematic search strategy using five databases, grey literature and a hand search. Search strategies and protocols were developed using tailored mesh terms and keywords. 43 out of 11,291 articles were eligible for inclusion. Clinicians' attitudes and beliefs towards environmental health and routine clinical practice were generally positive, with most clinicians believing that environmental hazards affect human health. However, with the exception of tobacco smoke exposure, environmental health assessment was infrequently part of routine clinical practice. Clinicians' self-competence in environmental assessment was reported to be inadequate. Major challenges were the time required to complete an assessment, inadequate training and concerns about negative patients' responses. Clinicians have strong positive attitudes and beliefs about the importance of environmental health assessments. However, more concerted and robust strategies will be needed to support clinicians in assuming their assessment and counselling roles related to a wider range of environmental hazards.

Parents' experiences of participating in an intervention on tobacco prevention in Child Health Care

BACKGROUND

Child health care is an important arena for tobacco prevention in Sweden. The aim of this study was to describe parents' experiences from participating in a nursebased tobacco prevention intervention.

METHODS

Eleven parents were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. The material was analysed in a qualitative content analysis process.

RESULTS

The analysis emerged four categories; Receiving support, Respectful treatment, Influence on smoking habits and Receiving information. The parents described how the CHC nurses treated them with support and respect. They described the importance of being treated with respect for their autonomy in their decisions about smoking. They also claimed that they had received little or no information about health consequences for children exposed to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). The findings also indicate that both the questionnaire used and the urine-cotinine test had influenced parents' smoking.

CONCLUSION

The clinical implication is that CHC is an important arena for preventive work aiming to minimize children's tobacco smoke exposure. CHC nurses can play an important role in tobacco prevention but should be more explicit in their communication with parents about tobacco issues. The SiCET was referred to as an eye-opener and can be useful in the MI dialogues nurses perform in order to support parents in their efforts to protect their children from ETS.

How to minimize children's environmental tobacco smoke exposure: an intervention in a clinical setting in high risk areas

BACKGROUND

Despite the low prevalence of daily smokers in Sweden, children are still being exposed to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), primarily by their smoking parents. A prospective intervention study using methods from Quality Improvement was performed in Child Health Care (CHC). The aim was to provide nurses with new methods for motivating and supporting parents in their efforts to protect children from ETS exposure.

METHOD

Collaborative learning was used to implement and test an intervention bundle. Twenty-two CHC nurses recruited 86 families with small children which had at least one smoking parent. Using a bundle of interventions, nurses met and had dialogues with the parents over a one-year period. A detailed questionnaire on cigarette consumption and smoking policies in the home was answered by the parents at the beginning and at the end of the intervention, when children also took urine tests to determine cotinine levels.

RESULTS

Seventy-two families completed the study. Ten parents (11%) quit smoking. Thirty-two families (44%) decreased their cigarette consumption. Forty-five families (63%) were outdoor smokers at follow up. The proportion of children with urinary cotinine values of >6 ng/ml had decreased.

CONCLUSION

The intensified tobacco prevention in CHC improved smoking parents' ability to protect their children from ETS exposure.

Parental smoking cessation to protect young children: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Young children can be protected from much of the harm from tobacco smoke exposure if their parents quit smoking. Some researchers encourage parents to quit for their children's benefit, but the evidence for effectiveness of such approaches is mixed.

OBJECTIVE

To perform a systematic review and meta-analysis to quantify the effects of interventions that encourage parental cessation.

METHODS

We searched PubMed, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and PsycINFO. Controlled trials published before April 2011 that targeted smoking parents of infants or young children, encouraged parents to quit smoking for their children's benefit, and measured parental quit rates were included. Study quality was assessed. Relative risks and risk differences were calculated by using the DerSimonian and Laird random-effects model.

RESULTS

Eighteen trials were included. Interventions took place in hospitals, pediatric clinical settings, well-baby clinics, and family homes. Quit rates averaged 23.1% in the intervention group and 18.4% in the control group. The interventions successfully increased the parental quit rate. Subgroups with significant intervention benefits were children aged 4 to 17 years, interventions whose primary goal was cessation, interventions that offered medications, and interventions with high follow-up rates (>80%).

CONCLUSIONS

Interventions to achieve cessation among parents, for the sake of the children, provide a worthwhile addition to the arsenal of cessation approaches, and can help protect vulnerable children from harm due to tobacco smoke exposure. However, most parents do not quit, and additional strategies to protect children are needed.

"Smoking in Children's Environment Test": a qualitative study of experiences of a new instrument applied in preventive work in child health care

BACKGROUND

Despite knowledge of the adverse health effects of passive smoking, children are still being exposed. Children's nurses play an important role in tobacco preventive work through dialogue with parents aimed at identifying how children can be protected from environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure. The study describes the experiences of Child Health Care (CHC) nurses when using the validated instrument SiCET (Smoking in Children's Environment Test) in dialogue with parents.

METHOD

In an intervention in CHC centres in south-eastern Sweden nurses were invited to use the SiCET. Eighteen nurses participated in focus group interviews. Transcripts were reviewed and their contents were coded into categories by three investigators using the method described for focus groups interviews.

RESULTS

The SiCET was used in dialogue with parents in tobacco preventive work and resulted in focused discussions on smoking and support for behavioural changes among parents. The instrument had both strengths and limitations. The nurses experienced that the SiCET facilitated dialogue with parents and gave a comprehensive view of the child's ETS exposure. This gave nurses the possibility of taking on a supportive role by offering parents long-term help in protecting their child from ETS exposure and in considering smoking cessation.

CONCLUSION

Our findings indicate that the SiCET supports nurses in their dialogue with parents on children's ETS exposure at CHC. There is a need for more clinical use and evaluation of the SiCET to determine its usefulness in clinical practice under varying circumstances.

Parents' attitudes to smoking and passive smoking and their experience of the tobacco preventive work in child health care

The purpose of this study was to describe parents' attitudes to smoking and their experience of the tobacco preventive work in antenatal care and in Child Health Care (CHC) in Sweden. A population based survey in which 62 percent of 3000 randomly selected parents with 1- and 3-year-old children answered a questionnaire. Fifty-six percent stated that smoking was registered in the health record of the child yet no further discussion regarding passive smoking took place. The parents' educational level and smoking status was related to the attitudes and experiences of the tobacco preventive work. The results indicated that the dialogue with parents regarding children and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure has to be redesigned and intensified in order to meet the needs of parents with different backgrounds.

Return of the "intimate outsider": current trends and issues in family nursing research revisited

This article reviews family nursing research published from 1996 to 2011. This is a follow-up to a review published in the Journal of Family Nursing in 1995. Findings from the first review are compared with this one, trends in family nursing scholarship are identified, and predictions and suggestions for future directions are offered. The latest generation of family nursing scholarship is conceptually and methodologically sound, and there is evidence of more multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research conducted by family nursing researchers. Scholars are paying more attention to issues of diversity and family context at present than in the past, although there are still aspects of diversity that need more attention. Strong research programs in family nursing exist worldwide; an international synergism has helped promote rapid expansion of family nursing research and theory development. A vigorous movement to promote research to practice initiatives and greater attention to family interventions are exciting developments.