INTERVENTION STUDY OF CIGARETTE-SMOKING A MONG SECONDARY-SCHOOL STUDENTS IN DUSSELDORF - A PROSPECTIVE CONTROLLED-STUDY

Between 1992 and 1994, an interventional program was held in the secon dary schools (''Hauptschulen'') in Dusseldorf contra cigarette smoking . The program was conducted in the following way. Half of the schools (intervention schools) were involved in this program which consisted o f 15 sessions. The other schools served as control groups. During the first year of this program school-teachers and a physician taught stud ents about the function and the abilities of the healthy heart and lun g. The students developed adversions to smoking. In addition, the stud ents learned by role-plays how to say no to a cigarette without embarr assment. These role-plays were videotaped. During the second year of t his program the role-plays were repeated and teaching about the heart and the lungs was augmented. Also, every student got the opportunity t o meet and talk with a famous athlete. Furthermore, smoking-cessation programs were hold in four intervention schools. The program started i n the sixth grade with a questionnaire administered to 878 schoolchild ren. During this time the average age of the children was 13 years. Be cause of a large fluctuation, the questioning could be repeated with o nly 630 of these children (71.8 %) after 2 years. At the end of the st udy the number of smokers had increased two times greater in the contr ol schools than in the intervention schools (boys: 20.5 % points vs 9. 4 % points; girls: 44.3 % points vs 21.0 % points). Obviously, the con tinuation of the program during the second year was important in makin g the program successful. Among the participants of the intervention p rogram there was a trend to stop smoking. But the program was not able to prevent non-smokers from starting the habit. On the other hand, of the children who started smoking during the program, more girls in th e intervention schools quit smoking than in the control schools. At th e end of the program more girls than boys (mean age 15 years) smoked. Almost one-fourth of the boys, and from the control schools one-third of the girls were already daily smokers. The smokers obtained cigarett es from kiosks, from friends, vending machines, vendors or shops, but seldom from their homes.