The importance of smoking prevention education has emphasized due to the increase of youth smoking experience and the decrease of smoking age.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of smoking prevention education program on the kno...
The importance of smoking prevention education has emphasized due to the increase of youth smoking experience and the decrease of smoking age.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of smoking prevention education program on the knowledge and attitude toward tobacco smoking, willingness to smoke, and satisfaction of education in horticultural activities. Thirty children were selected from the caring classroom of two each elementary schools and grouped as the experimental group and the control group for study.
At the beginning of education, questionnaire surveys were conducted on general characteristics, smoking knowledge, smoking attitude and willingness to quit smoking and after the end of education, conducted on smoking knowledge, smoking attitude, and willingness to quit smoking.
For the control group, nine lectures (from January 17 to February 14, 2017) performed using smoking prevention video and presentation. For experimental group, horticultural activity were added to 12 lectures (from December 28, 2016 to February 14, 2017). The training were conducted once or twice a week for 60 minutes depending on the school schedule.
The collected data were compiled by Microsoft Excel (MS Office Pro Plus 2013) and R program (ver.3.3.3) was used to analyses of Pearson -test, McNemar -test, t-test or analysis of variance.
The results of the study are as follows
1. Smoking prevention education improved the knowledge of smoking, and the educational effect on smoking knowledge was more obvious in the experimental group than the control group which did not apply the horticultural activity to the program.
2. It is effective to expand smoking prevention education to younger children, such as kindergartens, considering that 5% of children experienced smoking already, even they are 1-2 grade of elementary school.
3. The attitude toward smoking was lower in the experimental group to which the horticultural activity program was applied than in the control group, but the change was significant. It was significant in experimental group with horticultural activity, but not in control group only.
4. The effect of smoking prevention education on smoking cessation behavior was not significant between the experimental group and the control group. However, when McNemar -test was applied to each group, the experimental group increased in all items, while control groups showed no significance.
5. The comparison of the satisfaction level of the subjects' smoking prevention education program showed that the control group was higher than the experimental group with horticultural activity, but the frequency of satisfaction was higher in the experimental group.
As a result, the smoking prevention education programs performed to the experimental group and the control group, respectively, those conducted in this study were effective in educating the knowledge and attitude of the children in the elementary school caring classes to the right direction.
In order to prevent child smoking, smoking prevention education using horticultural activity showed which can prove harmfulness of smoking is highly educational effect.
The results of this study showed that smoking prevention education in the present study was effective in increasing the knowledge about smoking in elementary school care class children, and education which added horticultural activity was also effective in the change of attitude, It was not an abstract situation.
The method to maximize the effects is to develop and systematize the horticultural activity program customized for each grade level is required.
Key Words: Smoking prevention education program, smoking knowledge, attitude to smoking, caring classroom, willingness to quit smoking.