Effectiveness of Advocacy Skill Building Programme on Knowledge and Attitude Towards Prevention of Tobacco Use Among Adolescents

Abstract

Children aged between 10 and 19 years constitute 22.8% of the population (243 million) approximately in India.One in 10 students (10.0%) had ever used tobacco in any form. Proportion of students currently using any tobacco product was 4.5% (boys: 5.5%; girls: 3.1%). Tobacco use among adolescent has reached to pandemic levels. Adolescents should be protected against initiation of any tobacco products. They can be taught refusal skill (How to say NO) on tobacco use to prevent from using tobacco. Once adolescents start using tobacco in childhood, they continue to use tobacco at adulthood also. The aim of the study wasto assess effectiveness of standardised teaching programme on knowledge and attitude on Prevention of Tobacco Use for Adolescents at selected schools of Delhi, India. In this study Two group pre-test and post-test design with quasi experimental approach was used. 200 adolescents, 100 each in intervention and control group were enrolled using simple random sampling. Data was collected through online and physical mode using structured Knowledge questionnaire and attitude Likert scale. 45-minute standardised teaching programme was administered to adolescents. Result showed that majority of adolescents were in aged group of 14 yrs with Mean ±SD 13.6±0.586. Pre-test Mean knowledge score of intervention group was 17.52±7.21 and post test score was 34.13±5.07 which shows signicant difference at (t=-18.848, p<0.001). There was signicant difference between Mean pre-test attitude score6.68±1.7048 and 15.91 ±3.5988 at posttest with (t=--23.1780, p<0.001). The study concluded that Advocacy skill Building programme was effective in increasing knowledge and attitude of adolescents regarding prevention of tobacco use. Giving information and training is the key to prevent initiation of tobacco use among adolescents.