Three-year follow-up on the effects of a smoking prevention program for elementary school children with a quasi-experimental design in Japan.

OBJECTIVE We performed the follow-up tests for three years for junior high school students by the quasi-experimental design to investigate the medium-term effect of smoking prevention education in the elementary school. METHODS The intervention group consisted of 106 school students of three elementary schools and received a smoking prevention program in the elementary school. Moreover, the follow-up tests were conducted at each grade of junior high school, and the booster program was mailed. The comparison group consisted of 193 school students of another three elementary schools without the program. RESULTS The intervention effects were recognized on knowledge up to the second grade of junior high school for boys and up to the third grade for girls, on awareness of the importance of not smoking at the second grade, and on the intention of smoking at the age of 20 for girls up to the first grade. On the other hand, the intervention effects were not recognized on smoking experience for boys and girls. However, increase of the rate of smoking experience was not significant in the intervention group, while it was significant in the comparison group. CONCLUSION The effect of the program for three years was judged to be moderate.