Longitudinal impact of a youth tobacco education program

BMC Primary Care

Table 4 Percentage Correct Responses¹ to Survey Items on Knowledge of Short-Term Effects and Attitudes about Tobacco Use Among a Pooled 19 School Aggregate of 5^th Grade Students in Western New York State who Received a Tobacco Prevention Program Intervention During the 1998–1999 School Year.

Survey Item:	Baseline Survey (Pre-Test) (N = 1596)	Evaluation Survey (Immediate Post-Test) (N = 1438)
	%²	%²	p-value
Knowledge of short-term effects of tobacco:
(1) Smoking causes bad breath .....................	98.9	100	p = 0.0005
(2) Smokers have yellow teeth and fingers ............	76.9	96.7	p < 0.0001
(3) Low tar cigarettes are safe .....................	93.0	96.7	p = 0.0004
(4) Smokers have clean smelling clothes .............	90.0	94.5	p < 0.0001
(5) Smoking decreases the amount of air that gets into your lungs ........................	90.0	92.5	p = 0.0036
(6) Smoking 1 pack of cigarettes a day costs several hundred dollars per year..................	86.6	93.4	p = 0.0002
Attitude about tobacco use:
(7) People who use tobacco are popular and glamorous...	94.3	94.7	N.S.
(8) Some people start to use tobacco because their friends do ...............................	95.6	97.5	p = 0.0223
(9) Smoking is relaxing ..........................	89.9	89.4	N.S.
(10) Advertising tells the truth about the effects of tobacco use. ...........................	80.0	87.3	p = 0.0162

¹Proportions were compared at the School Level (N = 19), using Wilcoxon-Matched Pairs/Signed Rank Tests. P-values were identified as significant if they were less than or equal to .05, thus rejecting the null hypothesis (that the Intervention had No Effect); n.s. = not significant. ²Percentages shown are the Medians, which summarize the distribution of correct responses by school.

ISSN: 2731-4553