The Impact of Education Program on Smoking Prevention: An Intervention Study among 16 to 18 Years Old in Palestine
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3923/pjn.2013.782.786Keywords:
Effectiveness, intervention, Palestine, school-based, smoking, tobaccoAbstract
The use of tobacco is a growing public health problem in Palestine. School-based smoking prevention programs are effective in increasing knowledge of health-related aspects of smoking. The study assessed the effects of health education intervention on knowledge of tobacco consumption among high school students, in Tarqumia, Palestine. This is an intervention study to evaluate the effectiveness of an educational program on smoking. The study was in 3 stages: pre-intervention, intervention and post-intervention. At the pre-intervention phase, 240 male and female students were selected in both of the intervention and control groups by stratified sampling technique. Anonymous self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. The findings indicated no significant differences between the intervention and control groups in terms of mean knowledge score of health-related aspects of smoking (p = 0.807) before the intervention. However, there was a significant difference (p<0.001) between the intervention and control groups. There was no significant difference between male and female students in both the intervention and control groups at post-test. The study demonstrated that health education is effective in increasing smoking knowledge. It is recommended that continuous community-based and school-based health education program on smoking should be implemented by health professionals.
References
Betson, C.L., T.H. Lam, J. Peters A.J. Hedley and C.M. Wong, 1995. A Smoking Intervention Programme for Primary School Students in Hong Kong. In: Tobacco and Health, Slama, K. (Ed.). Plenum Press, New York, pp: 665-667.
CDCP, 2006. Use of cigarettes and other tobacco products among students aged 13-15 years-worldwide, 1999-2005. MMWR Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
CDCP, 1994. Guidelines for school health programs to prevent tobacco use and addiction. MMWR Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pp: 1-18.
Charlton, A., 1996. Children and smoking: The family circle. Br. Med. Bull., 52: 90-107.
DHHS, 2000. Reducing tobacco use: A report of surgeon general. Department of Health and Human Services, Atlanta, Georgia.
Ghrayeb, F.A., A.M. Rusli and A. Al Rifai, 2013. Youth in Trouble: Tobacco use among school students in Palestine. Can. J. Basic Applied Sci., 1: 58-67.
Schroeder, S.A. and W. Ke, 2010. Don't forget tobacco. N. Engl. J. Med., 363: 201-204.
Hunter, S.M., K.K. Steyn, D. Yach and N. Sipamla, 1991. Smoking prevention in black schools: A feasibility study. South Afr. J. Ed., 11: 137-141.
Hunter, S.M., K.K. Steyn, D. Yach and N. Sipamla, 1991. Self-confidence enhancement: A new anti-tobacco approach in South Africa. Am. J. Public Health, 81: 928-929.
Hanewinkel, R. and M. Aßhauer, 2004. Fifteen-month follow-up results of a school-based life-skills approach to smoking prevention. Health Educ. Res., 19: 125-137.
Jha, P., F. Paccaud and S. Nguyen, 2000. Strategic Priorities in Tobacco Control for Governments and International Agencies. In: Tobacco Control in Developing Countries, Jha, P. and F. Chaloupka (Eds.). Oxford University Press, New York, pp: 449-464.
Kendel, D. and L. Chen, 2000. Consumer Information and Tobacco Use. In: Tobacco Control in Developing Countries, P. Jha and F.J. Chaloupka (Eds.). Oxford University Press, New York, pp: 178-214.
Lloyd-Richardson, E.E., G. Papandonatos, A. Kazura, C. Stanton and R. Niaura, 2002. Differentiating stages of smoking intensity among adolescents: stage-specific psychological and social influences. J. Consulting Clin. Psychol., 70: 998-1009.
Lee, F.H. and H.H. Wang, 2002. Effects of health education on prevention of smoking among eighth-grade students. Kaohsiung J. Med. Sci., 18: 295-304.
Lee, P.H., D.M. Wu, H.R. Lai and N.F. Chu, 2007. The impacts of a school-wide no smoking strategy and classroom-based smoking prevention curriculum on the smoking behavior of junior high school students. Addictive Behav., 32: 2099-2107.
McNeill, A.D., 1991. The development of dependence on smoking in children. Br. J. Addiction, 86: 589-592.
Perry, C.L., M.H. Stigler, M. Arora and K.S. Reddy, 2009. Preventing tobacco use among young people in India: Project MYTRI. Am. J. Public Health, 99: 899-906.
Sun, P., J. Miyano, L.A. Rohrbach, C.W. Dent and S. Sussman, 2007. Short-term effects of Project EX-4: A classroom-based smoking prevention and cessation intervention program. Addictive Behav., 32: 342-350.
WHO, 2009. WHO report on the global cigarette epidemic. World Health Organization, Geneva.
Charlton, A., D. While, S. Kelly and W. Huang, 1997. Causes of absence from school related to children's and their parents' smoking. Tobacco Control, 6: 150-151.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2013 Asian Network for Scientific Information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
