PREVALENCE AND TO EVALUATE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ANTI-SMOKING EDUCATION ON SMOKING ILL EFFECTS IN VIEW TO ASSESS BASELINE AWARENESS AMONG SCHOOL CHILDREN

Back ground: Around 80% of the world's 1.1 billion smokers lives in low and middle income countries [WHO tobacco fact sheet 2018]. A literature review on tobacco usage among school going adolescents in India revealed that prevalence rate was high in male and ranged between 5.2% to 68.3% .This study aims to assess the prevalence and to evaluate the effectiveness of Anti-smoking education on smoking ill effects in view to assess the baseline awareness among school children in Madurai district. Methods: The quantitative study was conducted using a one group pretest post-test design in school children aged between 13 to 15 years in selected schools Madurai District, during 2021-2022. The sampling [ n = 100 ] includes male subjects based on convenience sampling technique. Results: Among 100 samples 10[10%] were smokers, 3[3%] samples began smoking before 13yrs of age,10[10%] samples expressed that they have started smoking due to peer pressure and hard to quit from smoking. In pre-test only 31% samples had adequate knowledge whereas in posttest 84% subjects had adequate knowledge. Paired't'test showed that there was a signicant difference between pre-test[mean 9.5 ±0.14] &post-test [ mean 43.4 ±227.5]&'t' value was 17.3 at p< 0.05 and a signicant association found between baseline awareness and variables such as religion x2 [–19.5 ] standard [x2 –15.4] type of family [x2– 47.6], education of father [x2 – 23.3], occupation of mother [x2 – 323.4] and income of parents [x2 – 6] Conclusion: The author concluded that the prevalence of smoking was 10% among school children and also unaware about the physical, psychological, academic & economic impact of smoking. Hence they need to be enlightened continuously on ill effects of smoking.