Effectiveness of teaching programme on smokeless tobacco use and its prevention among adolescent boys

Abstract

There has been a raising trend in tobacco use, more in smokeless forms in India; tobacco is the major cause of adolescent’s death in the world. Nearly 5 million people die due to tobacco use every year and this figure will increase to 10 million, by 2020 with 70% of them occurring in developing countries. To assess the knowledge and determine the effectiveness of teaching plan regarding prevention of smokeless tobacco use among adolescent boys. One group pre-test- post-test design was adopted to collect data from 60 PU boys using purposive sampling technique who completed sampling criteria. Majority 66.6% of respondents belongs to age 16 yrs, 83.33% studying in 1st PUC, 58% resides in urban areas, and 63.33% of respondents had family history of tobacco use. Respondent’s tobacco profile: Majority 58.4% of respondents use tobacco chewing, 65.8% initiated chewing at the of 16-18 yrs, 51.5% uses 2 times a day, 51.5 % chews for pleasure, 34.4% of respondents were influenced by their friends. The result revealed that the overall mean post test score (27.6) is higher than pre test (18.2) with enhancement of 9.4 which is found to be effective. Behaviour change communication should be established between the health workers and the adolescents to break down the habit of the consumption of tobacco/gutka.