Abstract

Primary school is regarded as an important period when many health-related behaviors and life-styles begin to be formed. Acquiring them through school heath education has a strong influence on the health promotion of not only the family but also the community. The goal of this study is to provide baseline data to develop a suitable smoking prevention program for the first graders of middle school. In order to provide this baseline data, the relationships between knowledge and attitudes of the adolescent regarding smoking, and the degree of their stress and self-esteem of the adolescent were explored To achieve this goal a self-administered questionnaire was distributed to the students in two middle schools in Kwang-ju City by school nurses, 400 questionnaires were collected and analyzed using SAS-Fe. The findings were as follows; 1. The subjects of this study were 225 male and 179 female, their average age of than was 12.7. Two students were smoking currently and 49 students had smoked. They started smoking at the mean age of 10.0. 2. Students who were not smoking showed more positive attitudes regarding anti- smoking(F=34.07, p=0.0001), perceived less stress(F=8.32, p=0.0003), and had higher self-esteem(F=15.35, p=0.0001). 3. Those who had the intention to smoke in the future showed more negative attitudes regarding anti-smoking(F=38.97, p=0.0001), perceived more stress(F=4.87, p=0.002) and had lower self-esteem(F=5.55, p=0.0042) 4. Those who had a better self-perception of school performance showed more positive attitudes regarding smoking(F=8.28, p=0.0003), perceived less stress(F=3.48, p=0.0316), and had higher self-esteem(F=22.36, p=0.0001). Those who frequently communicate with their parent showed more positive attitudes regarding anti-smoking(F=4.27, p=0.0082), and had high self-esteem(F=13.28, p=0.0001). 5. There were positive correlations between the attitudes regarding smoking and the self esteem of the adolescent(r=0.36498, p=0.0001), and a negative correlation between the self esteem and the perceived stress of the adolescent(r=-0.34763, p=0.0001). From the above results, we notice adolescent's smoking were related not only with knowledge regarding smoking but also with the intention to smoke in the future, attitudes regarding smoking, and the degree of their stress and self-esteem. So the smoking prevention program to reduce adolescent smoking should include the strategies to increase self-esteem and to address the perceived stress and the dangers of smoking.

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