title: The effectiveness of narrative versus informational smoking education on smoking beliefs, attitudes and intentions of low-educated adolescents.
abstract: This study tests the effectiveness of narrative versus informational smoking education on smoking beliefs, attitudes and intentions of low-educated adolescents.
  
  
  
  A field experiment with three waves of data collection was conducted. Participants (N = 256) were students who attend lower secondary education. At the first and third waves, they completed a questionnaire. At the second wave, 50.8% of the participants read a smoking education booklet in narrative form and 49.2% read a booklet in informational form. After reading, all participants also completed a questionnaire at wave 2.
  
  
  
  Beliefs about negative consequences of smoking, attitudes towards smoking and intentions to smoke were measured.
  
  
  
  Repeated measures analyses with time as a within-subjects factor and condition as a between-subjects factor showed that beliefs about smoking were more negative at Wave 2 compared to Wave 1, irrespective of condition. However, attitudes towards smoking were more positive at Wave 3 compared to Wave 1 when participants had read the narrative version.
  
  
  
  These results show that narrative smoking education is not more effective than informational smoking education for low-educated adolescents and can even have an unintended effect for this target group by making attitudes towards smoking more positive.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Communication and Information Studies , Radboud University Nijmegen , Nijmegen , The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Anneke
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: de Graaf
authors.affiliation: b Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) , University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam , The Netherlands.|c Trimbos Institute, Netherlands Institute for Mental Health and Addiction , Utrecht , The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Bas
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: van den Putte
authors.affiliation: b Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) , University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam , The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Minh-Hao
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Nguyen
authors.affiliation: b Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) , University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam , The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zebregs
authors.affiliation: c Trimbos Institute, Netherlands Institute for Mental Health and Addiction , Utrecht , The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jeroen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lammers
authors.affiliation: b Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) , University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam , The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Neijens
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D008297:Male; D033262:Narration; D009426:Netherlands; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology*; D000074606:Smoking Prevention; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: narrative; school-based health education; smoking prevention