Gençlerde sigaradan korunma konusunda akran eğitimi programinin etkinliği

Summary:Aim: Smoking Is a major public health problem. A substantial proportion of smokers start smoking during adolesence period. Therefore, smoking control programmes for young people is important. This study was planned evaluate the impact of the peer education program on smoking incidence, regular smoking incidence, incidence of try smoking and incidence of smoking cessation.Material and methods: The study type is interventional study. Regular smoking (1 cigarette?week) incidence among nonsmokers at baseline was taken 2%f or intervention group while it was assumed 4% for control group. Type 1 error was taken 5% and power was taken 80%. We calculated sample size as 2480 for each group. The study was carried out at three high schools in Manisa City Center. The control group was the students who attend these schools at 2007-2008 (n= 1737, participation rate 89,6%) while those attend at 2008-2009 composed of intervention group (n=1787, participation rate 81,0%). Peer education program was carried out in the 2008-2009 academic year. There were 150 peer volunteers in total. They were trained in three sessions in groups of 20 people. Peer volunteers were wanted to educate their friends informally on smoking prevention. The data were collected by two self reported questionnaires which were applied in May 2008 and in May 2009. Programme efficacy were evaluated obtaining smoking incidence, regular smoking incidence, incidence of try smoking and incidence of smoking cessation of the study groups. The questionaires consist of sociodemographic data and smoking status at previous year and current year. We also collected the data on experience of peer volunteers by using diaries and self reported questionaires. The data were analyzed using SPSS for Windows 10.0 statistical package programme. Chi-square test and logistic regression analysis were used for analysis.Results: The proportion of the students who talked about smoking during the previous year was 45,5% in control group while it was 49,1% in intervention group (p> 0.05). Smoking incidence among non smokers at baseline was 3,2% and 2.9% in control group and intervention group, respectively (p> 0.05). Smoking incidence among the students who tried smoking at baseline was 6,3% and 9,4% in control group and intervention group, respectively (p> 0.05). Smoking prevalence among the students who were smoking less than 1 cigarette per week at baseline was 72.2% in the control group and it was 71.3% in intervention group (p> 0.05). Smoking prevalence among the students who were smoking 1 cigarette or more per week at baseline was 81,8% in the control group and it was 77,9% in intervention group (p> 0.05). We found the similar results for regular smoking since all of the smokers smoke 1 cigarette or more per week. The incidence of try smoking during previous year among nonsmokers at baseline was 3,2% for control group while it was obtained 3,9% for intervention group (p> 0.05). None of the smokers at baseline quit smoking at the end of the program.Conclusion:The results of the survey showed that peer volunteers education programme on smoking prevention has a limited effect on smoking prevention. The studies with larger sample size and with longer follow up on impact of peer educational programmes on smoking prevention period should be carried out.Key words: Smoking, peer education, smoking, regular smokers, try smoking