Abstract:

Objective To understand the infants' fathers smoking state at home,those fathers' desire for smoking cessation,and mothers' exposure to second-hand smoking,etc.,and to provide scientific basis for formulating the measures of smoke-free families. Methods The group sampling method was adopted,342 households with fathers smoking at home of infants registered in the medical care section of 15 community health service centers in two urban districts of Changchun city in Jilin province were slected,and a household-to-household questionnaire survey to the mothers and the fathers of the newborn was conducted,and the palmtops were used to record the questionnaire data,and 299 valid questionnaire answers from the fathers and 304 from the mothers were collected. Results 77.6% fathers of the newborn smoked every day,consuming(12.4±6.3)cigarettes every day on average;61.2% mothers of the newborn were exposed to second-hand smoking;55.2% fathers of the newborn attempted to quit smoking,and 5.3% fathers expressed their wish to quit smoking within the following one month;43.9% fathers did not want to quit smoking;the motivations for giving up smoking within the following six months ranked in percentage as follows,the health of newborn (59.3%),the personal health (28.3%),the health of the wives (41.6%),the family members' aversion (38.1%),and the differences were statistically significant(χ²=30.072,P<0.01); 36.63% fathers and 69.41% mothers of the newborn agreed to the establishment of smoking-free families,and the difference was statistically significant(χ²=59.207,P<0.001). Conclusion Both the numbers of smoking fathers and their smoking frequencies on the daily basis are quite huge,while the number of the fathers agreeing to quit smoking is comparatively low;the problem of second-hand smoking at home is serious;the health of newborn is quite a strong motivation for the fathers to quit smoking;the mothers of newborn are very enthusiastic about the notion of smoking-free families.

Key words: newborn's father, desire for smoking cessation, smoke-free families