Effects of Smoking Cessation Programs in Public Health Centers on High School Smokers' Smoking Behavior and Attitude

보건소 금연교육 프로그램이 흡연 고등학생의 흡연행동과 태도에 미치는 영향

Objectives: Subjects of this study were technical high school students. It researched students' smoking status, smoking attitude, smoking perception and willingness to quit smoking, providing them with a five-day-smoking cessation program. Methods: Data collection proceeded from April to August 2008. The subjects were the whole number, 38 students, of 1EA technical high school located. The subjects who attended the smoking cessation program were the first and second grade students of the high school whom classroom teachers recommended. As to the subject, I comparatively analyzed differences between the before and after instruction, between after instruction and after consecutive consulting, and between before instruction and after consecutive consulting. The five-day-smoking cessation program took 2 successive hours a day for five days. Results: Average age for them to start smoking was 13.6 and to form smoking habits was 15.5. Average smoking period was 31.6 months and average smoking quantity was 11.2 cigarettes. As a result of the five-days smoking cessation program, 10.5% of the participants quit smoking and smoking quantity also significantly reduced. After instruction, willingness to quit smoking was generally higher than before. Smoking attitude, especially toward adolescent smoking, changed to be more negative than before. Perception of smoking also changed to be positive. Conclusions: The results from the comparative analysis of before and after instruction revealed a decrease on smoking quantity of the participants who attended the smoking cessation program. It also showed a significant change on smoking attitude, willingness to quit smoking and smoking perception.