Telephone-guided placement and removal of nicotine monitors for the assessment of passive exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.

The aim of this study was to determine the feasibility of telephone-guided placement of nicotine air sampling monitors in homes of women with infants. A monitor was mailed to homes in which the mother, her partner, or both were smokers, and a research assistant telephoned the woman and guided her through proper placement of the monitor according to a standard protocol. To assess the success of the guided placement, research assistants visited the homes of 50 women at the end of the two-week air-sampling period. The placement was determined to be correct if the monitor was positioned at least 1 ft from windows, more than 1 ft from the nearest corner of the room, and more than 2 ft from ashtrays. We had a 94% success rate for monitor placement in our study population, and our cost assessment showed that guided placement and removal cost approximately one-tenth the amount of methods requiring research assistants to conduct placements onsite. These results suggest that telephone-guided placement of monitors is an acceptable, inexpensive alternative to onsite placement by research assistants.