Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate the effects of a school based smoking prevention program for college freshmen.
Method: The nonequivalent control group, pretest-post-test design was used. Among 16 departments in a University located in S city, students in 8, randomly selected, departments received 6 sessions of smoking prevention program consisted of small group discussion led by smoking cessation leaders, video watching, and lectures from March 15 to June 9, 2004. Students in remaining 8 departments did not receive any education. Student’s attitude, intention, stress, temptation, knowledge and self efficacy was measured.
Result: The level of stress and smoking temptation was significantly decreased in the experimental group over that of the control group.
Conclusion: It was proven that this school based smoking prevention program was effective for decreasing smoking temptation in college freshmen. In the future, more efforts should be given to college age students to prevent them becoming chronic smokers.
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