한국 중ㆍ고등학교 흡연 예방 교육 실태 및 요구도 조사: ‘흡연 미디어 리터러시 교육’ 중심

Investigating the Current Status and Needs of School-Based Smoking Prevention Education in the Republic of Korea: Focusing on Smoking Media Literacy Education

Purpose: Given the substantially slow decreases in adolescent smoking rates, it is important to develop more effective strategies for preventing smoking among adolescents. Thus, we aimed to investigate the provision/participation experiences of school-based smoking prevention education (SPE) targeting adolescents and the perceived needs for school-based SPE, including smoking media literacy (SML) education. Methods: We used convenience sampling and collected data through self-report questionnaires. Our final sample included 50 teachers and 150 middle and high school students in Korea. We calculated means and frequencies to understand sample characteristics, provision/participation experiences of the SPE, need for the SPE, and SML education; we conducted a t-test, Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test, Chi-square test, and Fisher’s exact test to investigate differences in the provision/participation experiences of the SPE, need for the SPE, and SML education between teachers and students. Results: Teachers indicated the need for changes in SPE, whereas students were satisfied with the education. The majorities of teachers and students did not know the definition of SML. Only 8.0% of teachers provided SML education to students; only 5.4% of students were educated about SML. Teachers indicated the necessity of providing SML education to students; however, students did not think that SML education was highly necessary, although 55.8% were exposed to smoking-related media. Conclusion: Given our findings, school-based SML education should be provided to students. To do so, it is necessary to develop standardized teaching materials and training programs targeting teachers so that they can effectively provide SML education to students.