The Effects of A Community-based Health Program on Adolescents’ Smoking Prevention – A Quasi-Experimental Study

Abstract

Background: Tobacco Smoking is considerably high among adolescents in Indonesia, indicating the potential proportion of tobacco smoking effects experienced by young Indonesians in the future and the need of program interventions to halt the tendency. This study aims to investigate effects of a community-based health promotion intervention on smoking prevention among Indonesians’ adolescents.Methods: The quasi-experimental study with a pre-and-posttest control group design involved 104 adolescents aged between 12 to 14 years. The adolescents were convieniently assigned into one intervention (55 adolescents) or a control group group (49 adolescents), with participants in the intervention group received four health promotion sessions using smoking prevention videos for one month. Effects of the intervention were measured by a questionnaire at one week before and after the intervention completed and then analyzed by an approprite data analysis technique.Results: After the intervention completion, there was a significant positive effect of the community-based health promotion intervenstion program in improving adolescents tobacco smoking knowledge, attitude, intention and behavior (p = <0.001).Conclusion: Community-based health promotion program provides positive impact on adolescents smoking prevention and therefore should be considered as one of stretegies for tobacco smoking prevention program.