Social support and the smoking behaviour of parents with preschool children

In a study of the relationship between social support and smoking behaviour, 1046 parents coming with their children for well-child control at health centres in Oslo, Norway, completed a questionnaire. The prevalence of daily smoking increased with decreasing social support. However, this association did not remain significant when adjusting for demographic and household characteristics. Among smoking parents, indoor smoking at home was related to medium (OR = 1.97; CI: 1.01-3.81) and low social support (OR = 2.35; CI: 1.19-4.63) when adjusting for demographic and household characteristics. Smoking parents smoked more cigarettes per day when they had low social support. However, this association was only seen in parents with several children. In this group, smoking 10 cigarettes per day or more was strongly related to medium (OR = 5.05; CI: 1.66-15.35) and low social support (OR = 7.81; CI: 2.44-25.01).