Nicotine addiction : Objective in educational programs for smoking prevention in young people

Abstract

In those countries where education and smoking prevention campaigns are carried out at school level, there has been a decline in the prevalence of smoking among pupils. Nicotine addiction represents a sum of pharmacological, electrophysiological and molecular genetic mechanisms and behavior patterns. The study was conducted from December 2016, to July 2017 and it consisted in an online survey posted on a website. The participants accessed the survey through an e mail link. The study population consisted of 1144 teachers (from primary school, gymnasium and college). The declared percentage of daily smokers was 14%, below the European average, while 20.5% were declared ex-smokers, 11.2% were occasional smokers and 54.4% never smoked. The theme of smoking was approached by 79.2% of teachers during conducting classes and 81.6% of them advised smokers to stop smoking. Teachers can influence the pupils' behavior by personal example and by teaching, inside and outside the school, thus preventing nicotine addiction. Decreasing the prevalence of smoking among teachers will inevitably lead in the future to a decrease of adolescent smokers' incidence. Our study was a pilot project that can draw important directions in educational and preventive campaigns in schools.