OCAST Cessation Study (OCAST)

The long-term goal is to improve the quality of life of children and their parents who smoke tobacco by facilitating parental smoking cessation in a way that is easy to administer yet effective. We aim to accomplish this goal by administering an interactive computer-based program that will facilitate motivation and readiness to engage in smoking cessation by providing personalized feedback about the financial and health effects of the parent's smoking. We will compare the changes in motivation and readiness to quit smoking after the parent has taken the computer-based program and compare them to the changes in motivation and readiness to quit in parents who receive only information about the Oklahoma Tobacco Helpline. We will also measure salivary cotinine levels in both parents and children, to objectively measure changes in smoking habits and secondhand smoke exposure. Our hypothesis is that our computer-based program will cause a greater increase in motivation and confidence to quit smoking in the group that receives the customized feedback than the group that receives only information about the Tobacco Helpline. We also predict that both parent and child cotinine levels will show a greater decrease in the group randomized to receive personalized feedback.