Effect of structured teaching programme on knowledge of the ILL effects of tobacco use among adolescents

India is the second largest producer of tobacco. Most of the people who smoke first, light up a cigarette when they are teenagers. In fact 80% of tobacco users began the habit before they turned 18 yrs. It was estimated in 1999–2001 that 5,500 adolescents start using tobacco every day in India. The most susceptible time for initiating tobacco use in India, is during adolescence and early adulthood, at the of age 15–24 years. In this study, to assess the effectiveness of structured teaching programme (STP) on knowledge about the ill effects of tobacco use, 50 adolescents were selected by using simple random sampling technique from a selected high school of Palakkad district. The pretest was conducted using a structured interview questionnaire. STP was conducted and booklet was given to each individual following the STP. After 7 days, post test was conducted using the same structured interview questionnaire. Most of the individuals had moderate knowledge (66%) in the pretest; after STP, 72% had high knowledge and 2% had poor knowledge. Paired‘t'test was applied to compare pre-test and post-test knowledge scores at p<0.001. There was a significant association between the knowledge scores with selected demographic variables by using chi-square test at p<0.05. This study demonstrated that STP on the ill effects of tobacco use is effective in improving knowledge level of adolescents.