The Effects of Hcalth Education on Prevention of Smoking among Eighth-Grade Students

This paper reports on the effects of health education intervention on the smoking knowledge, attitudes, decision-making capabilities, and intentions not to smoke of eighth-grade students. The study selected one intervention and two control groups. The intervention group received six-hour's health education. Data were collected before and immediately after and two months after the intervention to examine the immediate and later effects of the intervention. Data were analyzed with a repeated measures analysis of variance. Results indicated that while health education could significantly enhance students' smoking knowledge, it did not significantly change the students' nonsmoking attitudes, decision-making capabilities, or intention not to smoke. The findings suggest that school health nurses can design and provide health education activities to increase junior high school students' smoking knowledge and smoking frequency.