Patterns of parents’ perspectives on protecting young children from secondhand smoke exposure: A Q‐methodology study

Abstract

Aims To identify and describe the various patterns of parents’ perspectives on avoiding secondhand smoke exposure. Design Q methodology was applied to investigate the parental perspectives of 50 parents. Methods The study was implemented from September–December 2016. Forty‐two Q‐statements were constructed based on the literature related to parental attitudes and prevention practices regarding preventing young children from experiencing secondhand smoke exposure. A series of Q‐sorts was performed by the participants to rank the statements into a Q‐sort grid. PQMethod 2.35 software was used to perform principal component analysis to identify different patterns of parents’ perspectives. Results Five patterns of shared perspectives, which accounted for 62% of the total variance, were derived from the analysis: (a) lack of confidence to confront smokers in non‐smoking areas; (b) awareness of health hazards but not ready to take preventive actions; (c) emphasis on parental responsibility and behavioural guidance; (d) awareness of health rights protected by legislation; and (e) strong willingness to take protective actions. Conclusion Our findings revealed the shared perspectives of five groups of parents. The exploration of clusters of parents could assist healthcare professionals in acknowledging parents’ tendencies related to attitudes and responses towards secondhand smoke exposure. Impact Using a forced distribution through the Q‐sorting technique, the particular perspective patterns of parents’ experiences would be captured. These findings can serve as a useful guide for researchers and practitioners to develop tailored intervention programs for parents with the purpose of reducing secondhand smoke exposure in young children.

Identifying archetypal cannabis consumers to inform drug policy design: a Q-sort assessment of young adults’ attitudes in Mexico City’s metropolitan area

“…As such, "[it] focuses on the subjective or first-person viewpoints of its participants" (Watts and Stenner 2005). Variations of the Q-sort methodology have been used in empirical studies on police perceptions (Chanin and Espinosa 2015), cannabis consumers' attitudes regarding rule compliance (Espinosa 2019), studies on drug use prevention (Huang et al 2020), and secondhand smoke exposure (Huang 2019).…”

Perspectives Emerged from Students and Supervisory Staff Interaction in Drug Use Prevention: A Q Methodology Investigation

“…They weighed the degree of agreement of each statement in relation to other statements. The results of the Q sorts revealed new insights that might not have been elicited using the traditional Likert-type scaling survey [ 16 ].…”

“…Regarding youth-adult relationships in drug use prevention for students with drug use problems, both students’ and adults’ perceptions of the interaction process are crucial to understand how positive influences can be effectively delivered. The Q method was successfully used to investigate diverse subjective perceptions in multiple health issues [ 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ]. Instead of evaluating each item separately on a Likert-type scale, individuals were expected to prioritize all items in the Q sort procedure, which requires the agreement degree of all items to be simultaneously evaluated and weighed based on their viewpoints [ 16 ].…”

“…The Q method was successfully used to investigate diverse subjective perceptions in multiple health issues [16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. Instead of evaluating each item separately on a Likert-type scale, individuals were expected to prioritize all items in the Q sort procedure, which requires the agreement degree of all items to be simultaneously evaluated and weighed based on their viewpoints [16]. The Q sort procedure employed the holistic approach and offered an alternative to understand youth-adult relationships in drug use prevention.…”

Perspectives of the Elderly with Mild Cognitive Impairment Living Alone on Participating in a Dementia Prevention Program: A Q Methodology Study

“…Older adults would be able to disclose their perspectives about the dementia prevention program freely, without the constraints imposed by quantitative survey methods. The Q methodology has been widely applied in health topic research, such as ascertaining employees’ attitudes toward the resource demands of implementing the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative among maternity staff [ 20 ], patterns of treatment expectation and physician–patient relationships perceived by women receiving traditional Chinese medicine [ 21 ], single older adults’ differing perspectives on new relationships [ 22 ], patterns of parents’ perspectives on avoiding secondhand smoke exposure [ 23 ], older adults’ perspectives on fall-prevention beliefs [ 17 ], testing the usability of digital educational games for encouraging smoking cessation [ 24 ], and interaction between students and supervisory staff in drug use prevention [ 25 ].…”