Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Rose, John L

Titel

Analysis of the Requirements for Smoking Cessation Activities in High Schools and Colleges in the A.C.T

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

1983

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This thesis is in two parts. The first part is a review of the literature pertinent to adolescent smoking behaviour . Factors involved in the adoption and maintenance of smoking behaviour are discussed. It then describes the types of smoking intervention programmes used with adolescents to date and highlights the lack of any widely available and effective help with smoking cessation for this age group. A methodology for predicting intentions to smoke and developing intervention programmes, based on a model by Fishbein and Ajzen (1980) is presented.The second part of the thesis describes the development of a questionnaire. This was used to discover the demand for help with smoking cessation in adolescents . It was also used to gather data for the prediction of intention to smoke and for the development of intervention programmes, using the components of Fishbein and Ajzen's model . This questionnaire was used to survey 667 high school students from years 8 to 12 in the Australian Capital Territory.Results from the survey indicated that 2 54 (38%) of adolescents had smoked in the last month. Out of these 100 (40.1 per cent) said they intended to stop smoking and 77 (29.8 per cent) said they would like help with giving up. This represents a large demand from adolescents for help with smoking cessation.Fishbein and Ajzen's model was found to have significant predictive ability for smoking intention. Both attitude and subjective norm components of the model contributed to its predictive power when applied to the entire sample. Both components contributed to the models predictive power when applied to non smokers alone, however only the attitudinal component contributed significantly to the prediction of smokers' smoking intentions . This indicates that non-smokers' intentions to smoke, or not, are more likely to be influenced by social factors than smokers.The individual contribution of components of the model were analysed. Non-smokers and smokers that wanted to give up were different on a wide range of factors. This implies a broadly based intervention programme would be most likely to help smokers give up. However, there were some areas where differences were particularly large. These areas are considered with regard to their implications for the development of specific cessation techniques.