Abstract

PURPOSE
To examine the effect of a smoking prevention program on changing the knowledge and attitude toward smoking behavior of male middle school students.
METHOD
A total of 69 male middle school students participated in this study. Each of them was assigned to either smoking prevention program (n=35) or to a control group (n=34). The intervention for the experiment group was developed by the investigator. The questionnaires for assessing knowledge and attitude were created by modifying scaled employed in previous studies.
RESULTS
1) The experimental group with smoking prevention program showed higher scores in knowledge for smoking harmfulness in comparison with the control group (F=18.782, p=.000). 2) The experimental group with the smoking prevention program showed lower scores in attitude toward smoking behavior in comparison with the control group (F=17.483, p=.000).
CONCLUSION
The results showed that the smoking prevention program was effective on improving knowledge and attitude toward smoking behavior in male middle school students. More studies on development of comprehensive smoking prevention programs for adolescents need to be conducted in the future.