Evaluation of a self-directed smoking prevention and cessation program

Abstract

This study evaluates a youth subject-directed smoking prevention and cessation program titled Breathe Easy! The program was delivered at two sites and a control group was recruited from two additional sites. Surveys were administered prior to the program and either 1 month or 6 months after completion at the exposure sites. The same survey administration procedure was used as the control. After controlling for invalid responses and including only those that completed both surveys, 251 exposure subjects and 159 control subjects remained for analysis. At sites with 1-month follow-up, no significant difference was noted between intervention and control groups. At the sites with 6-month follow-up, prevalence dropped from 18.7% to 8.9%, which is statistically significant, while at the control site prevalence changed from 14.1% to 9.4%, which is not significant. Additional outcomes examined in the exposed group showed trends toward smoking cessation and prevention at higher rates than those of the unexposed group.