Knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about tobacco use after an educative intervention in health sciences' students

Summary 

Purpose

To examine the effectiveness of a tobacco control course on the improvement of knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about smoking among health sciences' students.

Methods

This was a quasi-experimental study of community intervention carried out during the years 2005–2008, at 2 university health science centres in northwest Spain. A total of 290 students on the intervention and 256 on the control campus took part in the study.

The intervention consisted of a course on the prevention and control of tobacco use offered only on the intervention campus. Data were collected before the intervention and 6months afterwards.

Results

After the course, significant differences between groups were observed in the improvement of knowledge, attitudes and perceived ability to act in tobacco control.

Conclusions

The introduction of training concerning smoking through active methodologies had a positive impact on the knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about tobacco of students.

Keywords: Health knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Tobacco control, Active learning, Health science students