Effectiveness of a planned teaching program on knowledge of the negative effects of nicotine addiction among nursing students – A quasi-experimental study

The tobacco plant and some e-cigarette liquids naturally contain nicotine, a highly addictive substance. Tobacco usage is the second most lethal drug worldwide, with an estimated 5 million deaths from it, and it poses a serious health risk.

To evaluate the student’s knowledge of the negative effects of nicotine addiction among nursing students and find the association between the pre-test knowledge score of the negative effects of nicotine addiction and the selected demographic variables of Nursing students.

This quasi-experimental study used a one-group pretest and post-test design. Simple random sampling (lottery method) was used to select 50 nursing college students. A structured knowledge questionnaire was used to assess the students' knowledge of the negative effects of nicotine addiction.

Study results showed that the pretest poor knowledge score was 30% (n=15) which was reduced to zero in the post-test. The average knowledge score in the pretest was 64% (n=32) which was reduced to 4% (n=2) in the post-test. Most participants scored good knowledge scores in the post-test from 6% (n=3) to 96% (n=48). The average mean knowledge score in the pretest was 13.02±4.70 increasing to 30.40±3.23 in the post-test. The calculated ‘t’ value (t = 58.34) shows a significant difference at p < 0.05 from pre- to post which showed that planned teaching program effectively improved the knowledge score on the negative effects of nicotine addiction among nursing students.

Planned teaching program have a considerable impact on students' knowledge level, as demonstrated by the statistical data provided by the study findings.