Abstract
Objectives: To prevent smoking among adolescents, we should facilitate school-based smoking prevention programs and provide supports for teachers to participate actively in these programs. This study investigated Korean middle teachers' intentions, perceptions, and attitudes toward participating in smoking prevention programs. Methods: The study design was cross-sectional. Our conceptual framework utilized the Theory of Planned Behavior by Fishbein and Ajzen. We conducted open-ended elicitation interviews with teachers. We developed the survey questionnaire contents with data from these interviews, and distributed the questionnaires in 2002 to 194 school teachers from four schools in Seoul and Kyounggi-Do. Teachers' beliefs(behavioral, normative & control) and intentions about participating in smoking prevention programs were measured by 7-point scales. Results: The majority of teachers surveyed reported participating in adolescents' smoking prevention programs, while only less than 10% teachers reported having educational training for such programs. Teachers' attitudes toward participating in smoking prevention programs were positive, but they did not feel strong subjective norms about participating in the programs. They reported several barriers as well as facilitating conditions in participating in those programs. In correlation analysis, teachers' subjective norms and attitudes toward participating in smoking prevention were significantly correlated with their intentions to participating in those programs. Teachers with positive perceptions about smoking prevention programs were more likely to have strong intentions to participation in them, while teachers who received educational training and instructions on how to teach in smoking prevention programs were more likely to have positive perceptions than those who did not. Conclusion: We concluded that smoking prevention programs for adolescents can be made more effective by increasing societal expectations that teachers participate in these programs, and by providing additional resources dedicated to facilitating teachers' active participation in them.
