Design
Data were collected as part of a larger cross-sectional health survey. Data collection occurred between February and October 2010.
Setting & Sample
One SCSO in New South Wales, Australia, participated. Data was collected from three SCSO service sites located in Sydney (two services) and a regional area (one service). SCSOs are non-government, not-for-profit organisations that provide welfare services to highly disadvantaged individuals in the communities in which they are based. They provide a range of services to individuals including financial and family counselling, temporary accommodation, food and material aid, and child and family support [19, 20]. Participants were adult clients attending the SCSO for emergency relief, which involved receiving financial or material assistance, including free grocery items, assistance paying bills, and assistance with purchasing medications.
Recruitment & Procedure
Service attendees were invited by their caseworker at the end of their emergency relief interview to complete a touch screen computer administered health survey. Clients attending the services during the recruitment period who were aged over 18 years, able to speak or read English to a level that allowed completion of an English survey with or without assistance, and who were not distressed were eligible to participate. The gender and date of birth of non-consenting clients were collected to assess participation bias. Clients who consented to participate were introduced to a research assistant who provided support to read and/or complete the survey as necessary. Following completion of the touch screen computer health survey, participants were asked to complete a pen-and-paper survey to determine the acceptability of using the touch screen computer. Participants were then asked to provide a breath sample to measure breath carbon monoxide (BCO). BCO is a portable, low cost, immediate and non-invasive method of assessing smoking status [21], shown to have acceptable sensitivity and specificity [22]. Participants were unaware that they would be asked to provide this sample prior to completing the health survey.
Measures
Self-report
Survey items included questions about social demographics (e.g. gender, age, income, Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander status, employment and education), fruit and vegetable consumption, sun protection practices, smoking, physical activity, alcohol consumption and cancer screening behaviours (see Additional File 1). Only results relevant to the validation of smoking status will be reported here. All participants were asked "Do you currently smoke tobacco products?" (response options: 'Yes, daily', 'Yes, at least once a week', 'Yes, but less often than once per week' and 'No, not at all'). Time since last cigarette was determined by asking "When was the last time you smoked a cigarette, cigar or pipe?" (response options: 'Less than 4 hours ago', 'Between 4 and 8 hours ago', 'Between 8 and 12 hours ago and 'Longer than 12 hours ago'). In order to examine discrepancies between self reported smoking status and BCO, exposure to passive smoke and heaviness of smoking (using the Heaviness of Smoking Index (HSI)) [23] were examined as explanatory factors. All participants were asked "In the last 24 hours have you been near other people who were smoking?" (response options: 'Yes' and 'No). To enable the calculation of the HSI, smokers were also asked "On an average day, how many cigarettes do you smoke?" and "How soon after waking up do you smoke? (response options: 'Within 5 minutes', '6-30 minutes', 31-60 minutes' and 'After 60 minutes).
Touch screen computer
All questions were presented on a touch screen computer using Digivey survey software [24]. The touch screen computer was a Dell Latitude XT2 (1.4 GHz processor).
BCO
Exhaled BCO measurements were obtained using a Bedfont Micro+™ Smokerlyzer® (Bedfont Scientific, UK, http://www.bedfont.com). Participants were asked to take a deep breath and hold for 15 seconds before exhaling slowly into the smokerlyzer. BCO monitors used in the study were calibrated by the manufacturer before the study commenced. A cut point of 6 parts per million (ppm) was used as recommended by the manufacturer to distinguish between smokers and non-smokers [25].
Acceptability
Acceptability of touch screen computer use was assessed using six questions answered on a five point Likert scale from 'Strongly agree' to 'Strongly disagree'. Items included "Completing the survey using the touch screen computer was enjoyable", "Completing the survey using the touch screen computer was easy", "Completing the survey using the touch screen computer was complicated", "Completing the survey using the touch screen computer was stressful", "I would be happy to complete a short survey about my health a few times a year when I came into [community service organisation]" and "I would prefer to answer this survey using a pen-and-paper survey".
Power calculation
Based on known smoking rates among groups that utilise social and community service organisations [19], it was assumed that approximately 50% of clients attending the service would be smokers. Based on this assumption, and a minimum required sensitivity and specificity of 80%, a sample of 300 participants would allow estimation of sensitivity and specificity of self-report versus BCO with 95% confidence intervals within 6.4% of the point estimate.
Statistical Analysis
Basic frequencies were calculated and Chi-square tests and Fisher's exact tests used as appropriate to explore differences between groups. Self-reported smoking status was compared to the established cut point (6 ppm) to determine the sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values of self-report against BCO, using BCO as the criterion measure. Due to the known short half life of BCO, only individuals reporting daily or occasional smoking who indicated they had smoked a cigarette in the preceding 12 hours were included in the sensitivity and specificity analysis. The HSI was calculated by assigning a value of 0 for those reporting smoking between 0-10 cigarettes per day (CPD), 1 for those reporting 11-20 CPD, 2 for those reporting 21-30 CPD and 3 for those reporting 31 or more CPD. Responses to "How soon after waking up do you smoke?" were assigned values of 0 for those reporting > 60 minutes, 1 for those reporting 31-60 minutes, 2 for those reporting 6-30 minutes and 3 for those reporting < 5 minutes. These two values were then summed to give a score with a range of 0 (low dependence) to 6 (high dependence).
Ethics Approval
This study was approved by the University of Newcastle Human Research Ethics Committee.