A study of the effects of the tobacco educational program for smoking cessation support in baccalaureate nursing students over 18 months

Abstract

Objective : We developed a tobacco educational program for baccalaureate nursing students, which aimed to encourage the students to be non-smokers, improve their attitudes toward smoking as healthcare professionals, enhance their attitudes toward smoking cessation support, increase their opportunities to learn about smoking cessation support, and elevate their smoking cessation support efficacy. We assessed the long-term effects of the program on the baccalaureate nursing students.
Methods : We surveyed 188 students at 6 months before, immediately before, immediately after, 6 months after, and 18 months after the intervention. Responses were collected at all five points from 163 students. The questionnaires included information about the students' smoking behavior and attitudes, learning experience, and ability to provide smoking cessation support. To verify the effects of the intervention, we performed the Friedman test, repeated measures analysis of variance, and multiple comparisons tests.
Results : Most students continued to be non-smokers or quit smoking after the intervention. The scores for their attitudes towards smoking as healthcare professionals, experience of smoking cessation support learning methods, and smoking cessation efficacy rose significantly after the intervention.
Conclusion : Our program was simpler than those used in previous studies, and thus, it is considered to be highly implementable, even in the already overcrowded nursing education curriculum.