Development and Assessment of a Teacher-led Intervention in Preventing Tobacco Use Among the Youth in Ghana

Summary

The main purpose of this experimental study is to compare the existing health education program for School Health and Education Program (SHEP) in the Junior High Schools with a new health education model (Smart-Kids') for the prevention of smoking initiation and to improve the quit rate among students in Upper East Region of Ghana. The intervention will be based on the Theory of Triadic Influences (TTI) which involves the cultural environment in which adolescents mature, their immediate social situation, and intrapersonal differences. These three factors impact through different mediating variables, such as attitudes, normative beliefs, and self-efficacy, which eventually affect smoking intentions and smoking behavior as the outcome measures. The study design is a cluster randomized control trial. After baseline assessment, the investigators will randomize schools to receive the new health education for three months whiles the comparator (control group) will continue with the usual health education. The investigators will conduct a post-intervention assessment using the same questionnaire with unique identity codes linking each participant to their baseline assessments immediately at the end of the intervention. Final assessment will be done approximately three months after the intervention. The investigators will assess and compare the effectiveness of the new health model to the normal health promotion programs (SHEP).

The investigators hypothesized that there will be no significant differences observed between the new teacher-led health education program (the Smart-Kids Program) and the existing SHEP coordinator-led in preventing smoking uptake among the youth.

Alternatively, the new teacher-led health education program would facilitate the effects of the program on outcomes. on four key primary endpoints as follows:

* H1: The intervention study will result in a 30% reduction in smoking uptake
* H2: The intervention study will result in a 10% reduction in smokers
* H3. The intervention will increase knowledge of the harmful effects of tobacco use by 50%
* H4. The intervention will increase the willingness to quit smoking by 10% among smokers

Conditions

• Smoking Reduction
• Smoking Cessation
• Smoking, Tobacco
• Smoking Behaviors

Interventions

OTHER

Health education lessons (Smart-Kid's program)

The intervention is designed for all students, including never-smokers and students at high risk for smoking. Therefore, some contents are intended to influence those high-risk youth within the larger student audience by targeting the stages of the smoking acquisition process including, preparation, initiation, experimentation, regular use, and addiction (Mayhew et al., 2000). The intervention is also focused on addressing risk factors for smoking initiation and continue use (Hansen et al., 2015; So \& Yeo, 2015). These risk factors are, therefore, grouped into four major groups namely; personal factors, behavioral factors, environmental factors and sociodemographic factors

OTHER

School Health and Education Program (SHEP)

The SHEP is the usual health and education program been done in all schools, and also has tobacco control component. This is will be used as the control for the intervention.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

  collaborator OTHER

• Ghana Health Services

  lead OTHER_GOV

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

9 Years

Max Age

17 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-06-30

Primary Completion

2021-12-31

Completion

2022-04-30