The Opinion of Employees and Children Living in Foster Care Homes About Romanian National Clean Air Legislation on Tobacco Smoking

This study aims to assess the awareness and opinions of employees and children living in foster care homes about the Romanian Clean Air Legislation. The assessment was performed six months after the implementation of the antitobacco legislation (Romanian Law no.15/2016), in three Romanian counties (Alba, Mures, and Covasna) including 178 employees and 368 children from 59 foster care homes. Data were collected using an anonymous paper and pencil questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and chi-square test were used for data analysis (significant difference if p < 0.05). Almost one third of the employees and children were smokers from the forest care homes. Nearly, all the employees and most of the children were aware of the legislation, most of them have also noticed some kind of measures taken by foster care homes against smoking. As claimed by smokers, almost two-thirds of them smoked like they used to do before the legislation, more than a quarter stated that they decreased the number of daily smoked cigarettes and nearly a quarter intended to quit smoking in the future. A half year after the implementation of the legislation most of the employees and children living in foster care homes admitted that they knew about the change and it affected their smoking habits. Most of them have also observed some kind of measures taken against smoking. Despite these measures there were still smokers in the foster care homes, so there would be a need for more campaigns against smoking in the future.