Smoking knowledge and attitudes of grade nine and ten students: A basis for a health enhancement seminar program Cruz, Kent Jayson P.; De Guzman, Kristine A.; Guerrero, Pearl Princess V.; Mallari, Christelle Eleni S.; Oglesby, Francis B. and Pangalangan, Hanna B. 6

Thesis (Undergraduate) Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, 2015;College of Nursing, Bachelor of Science in Nursing 56

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ABSTRACT: Nearly all first use of tobacco takes place before high school graduation. The issue of youth smoking alarms the globe and a growing attention has been made towards possible predictors of smoking and how it can be prevented. The main objective of this study was to determine the level of knowledge and extent of attitude on smoking of grade nine and ten students and produce a health enhancement seminar program based fromit. Specifically, the study answered the demographic profile of the respondents in terms of sex and smoking experience. Furthermore, the level of knowledge and extent of attitudes on smoking was also determined by year level. In addition, the study determined the difference in the level of knowledge and extent of attitude on smoking behavior male and female respondents as well as their smoking experience. Descriptive type of research was utilized to get a simple and straightforward description on the level of knowledge and extent of attitudes on smoking of the respondents. Quota sampling was utilized to gather data from the target respondents. Moreover, an adapted questionnaire was used in collecting the data. There were a total of 133 respondents each for grade nine and grade ten who completed the questionnaire. Both descriptive and inferential statistics such as mode and percentage, weighted mean, and chi square were used to interpret and analyze the data and to test the hypothesis and fulfill the objectives of the study. The findings gathered in the study showed that majority of the respondents were females, and do not have smoking experiences. The research affirmed a high level of knowledge on smoking for both grade nine and ten students with the percentage of correct answers of 52.25% and 51.42% respectively. However, in the extend of attitudes on smoking, grade Nine students were interpreted having positive attitude with a weighted mean of 3.68, while grade Ten have a weighted mean of 3.35 which was interpreted as a negative attitude on smoking. In totality, the researchers concluded that using 0.05 level of significance, there was o significant difference between the levels of knowledge of grade nine students in terms of sex with a p-value of 0.641. However, grade ten recorded a p-value of 0.019 which inferred that there was a significant difference between their level of knowledge in terms of males and females. For the extent of attitudes towards smoking, grade nine had a p-value of 0.0003 which signified a significant difference between their extents of attitudes towards smoking in terms of sex. On the other hand, grade ten had a p-value of 4.19 which interpreted having no significant difference between their extents of attitude towards smoking regardless of sex. Furthermore, using 0.05 level of significance, the researchers concluded that there was no significant difference between the levels of knowledge of both grade Nine and Ten students in terms of smoking experience with a p-value of 0.647 and 0.443 respectively. However, grade nine students had a p-value of 0.013 and grade ten students had a p-value 0.034 , which signified a significant difference between attitudes towards smoking and the smoking experience for both grade nine and ten students. A health enhancement seminar program was developed based on the results of the study.

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