Introduction. School health education programmes are among the instruments for the prevention of tobacco smoking
among children and adolescents. Knowledge obtained in evaluation studies of these programmes indicates the degree of
their effectiveness and serves to improve their quality.
Objective. Recognition and evaluation of the effect of two-year anti-tobacco programme of health education on the
changes in the level of knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of adolescents.
Materials and method. An intervention study was originated in May 2007, and covered 859 first-year schoolchildren from
eight public junior high schools in Białystok in Poland, from among 3,318 schoolchildren attending 33 schools. The sample
was selected by means of two-stage stratified sampling with consideration of two groups: an intervention group covered
with educational actions (417 schoolchildren), and a control group (442 schoolchildren), where anti-tobacco education was
not carried out. Before the educational programme and after its completion an evaluation of knowledge, attitudes and
behaviours of junior high school adolescents was performed with respect to nicotinism, based on a survey. The educational
part consisted in conducting within 2 years, 4 educational classes and 2 competitions concerning tobacco-related problems.
Results. After two years, in the group of adolescents covered by the educational programme a significant increase was
observed – by 11.6% – in the percentage of schoolchildren who were familiar with the negative effects of tobacco smoking,
and an increase by 4.4% of those who were convinced that smoking is harmful. With respect to adolescents’ attitudes, the
effect of the programme was noted in only one of six components analyzed. After completion of the two-year educational
programme, both in the group covered by this programme and the control group, the percentage of smokers significantly
increased (by 12.8% and 12.7%, respectively).
Conclusions. It is necessary to evaluate the health education programme from the aspect of both the actual hard effects
of the anti-nicotine programme (changes in behaviour), and indirect effects – soft (knowledge, skills) which are a basis for
the potential verification of the programme in order to increase its effectiveness.
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