Increasing Home Smoking Restrictions Boosts Underserved Moms' Bioverified Quit Success

Objectives: Standard smoking cessation treatments remain relatively ineffective in vulnerable populations. This study tested whether efforts to restrict residential smoking mediated the counseling treatment - smoking cessation association in a child tobacco smoke exposure (TSE) reduction trial. Methods: Maternal smokers (N = 300) with young children from low-income minority communities were randomized to counseling or standard care control to promote child TSE reduction. Secondary mediation analyses controlled for factors associated with smoking cessation. Results: Counseling group mothers were more likely than controls to increase home smoking restrictions (OR = 1.9, 95% CI 1.1-3.4) and quit smoking (OR = 11.0, 95% CI 6.3-19.2). As hypothesized, increasing home smoking restrictions improved likelihood of bioverified quit status at end of treatment (OR = 2.5, 95% CI 1.1-5.9) and partially mediated the association between counseling intervention and quit status. Conclusions: Results suggest that among maternal smokers known to experience increased challenges to quitting smoking, encouraging efforts to protect children from TSE by increasing home smoking restrictions may be an important counseling intervention element that facilitates smoking cessation.