Development and evaluation of a tobacco cessation motivational program for adolescents based on physical attractiveness and oral health.
OBJECTIVE
Little is known about how to motivate youth to participate in smoking cessation programs. This paper reports an investigation of the feasibility and acceptability of an intervention that used vanity and oral health issues associated with tobacco use to motivate adolescent tobacco users to enter a school-based tobacco cessation program.


METHODS
Sixty-four continuation high school students aged 14 to 19 (31% female) and living in rural California participated in a youth-oriented, vanity and oral health-focused intervention designed to motivate tobacco users to join a six-week tobacco cessation group.


RESULTS
Following the intervention, 21 of 37 (57%) regular smokers signed up for the cessation program. Of these smokers, seven (33%) did not indicate on the baseline questionnaire any desire to quit smoking. Of the 21 smokers who signed up to participate in the cessation program, 16 (76%) actually participated (10 males and six females), eight (50%) completed all treatment sessions, and four (25%) reported that they quit smoking at the end of the program.


CONCLUSIONS
Overall program evaluations were very favorable. Findings were interpreted to provide support for the feasibility and acceptability of using physical appearance and oral health-oriented programs to motivate adolescent tobacco users to enter school-based cessation programs. Further study is needed to determine the effectiveness of such programs.
Semer
Nadine
N
Southern California Permanente Medical Group in Venice, California, USA.
Ellison
James
J
Mansell
Chuck
C
Hoika
Lillian
L
MacDougall
William
W
Gansky
Stuart A
SA
Walsh
Margaret M
MM
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001504:Beauty; D002140:California / Q000453:epidemiology; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D009062:Mouth Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology; D009909:Oral Health; D010865:Pilot Projects; D016730:Program Development; D015397:Program Evaluation; D015595:Skin Aging; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D020340:Tobacco Use Cessation / Q000379:methods* / Q000523:psychology; D014075:Tooth Discoloration / Q000523:psychology