Elsevier

Preventive Medicine

Volume 9, Issue 1, January 1980, Pages 135-143
Preventive Medicine

General article
Preventing the onset of cigarette smoking through life skills training

https://doi.org/10.1016/0091-7435(80)90064-XGet rights and content

Abstract

The effectiveness of a 10-session social psychological approach to the prevention of cigarette smoking was tested on 8th, 9th, and 10th graders (N = 281) in suburban New York. The program was designed to address both the social and psychological factors promoting the onset of smoking by attempting to: (a) increase students' ability to cope with direct pressures to smoke, (b) decrease their susceptibility to indirect pro-smoking social influences, and (c) improve their ability to cope with anxiety. The program was conducted by allied health professionals and utilized group discussion, modeling, and behavior rehearsal. Results indicate significant differences between the experimental and control groups in terms of the proportion of new “experimental smokers” (P < 0.01). Furthermore, there were significantly greater pretest—post-test changes for the experimental group on several of the knowledge and psychological measures, suggesting that the decrease in the onset of smoking behavior among the experimental subjects did occur for the hypothesized reasons.

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