Schools smoking prevention programme based on "stages of change" model does not work

Smoking among teenagers is increasing in Britain and the government is keen to reduce it. A computer based expert system designed to assess the "stage of change" of a smoker and to tailor information accordingly has been successful in adult smokers. On p 948 Aveyard et al report a cluster randomised trial in 52 English schools to see if three sessions with the expert system plus three lessons were more effective than standard health education in reducing smoking levels 12 months after the intervention. Among the 7444 teenagers followed up (out of 8352) the intervention showed no effect.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    StumbleUpon    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Cluster randomised controlled trial of expert system based on the transtheoretical ("stages of change") model for smoking prevention and cessation in schools

Paul Aveyard, K K Cheng, Joanne Almond, Emma Sherratt, Robert Lancashire, Terry Lawrence, Carl Griffin, and Olga Evans
BMJ 1999 319: 948-953. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]