Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Jan 26, 2019
Date Accepted: Mar 23, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Medical-student-delivered smoking prevention program for secondary schools: the Education Against Tobacco cluster-randomized trial – design, baseline characteristics and process evaluation.
ABSTRACT
Background:
Most smokers start smoking during their early adolescence with the idea that smoking is glamorous. After multiple failed quit attempts however, many of them end up with tobacco related diseases physicians are not able to cure. Education Against Tobacco (EAT) is a large network of about 3.500 medical students in 14 countries who educate more than 40.000 secondary school students per year in the classroom setting by the means of evidence-based self-developed apps and strategies.
Objective:
To evaluate long-term effectiveness of the school-based EAT intervention in reducing smoking prevalence among 7th graders in Germany.
Methods:
A cluster-randomized controlled trial is conducted with measurements at baseline and at 9, 16 and 24 months post-intervention via questionnaire. The study groups consist of randomized schools receiving the 2016 EAT curriculum and control schools with comparable baseline data (no intervention). The primary endpoint is the difference of change in smoking prevalence in the intervention group vs. the difference in the control group at a 24-months follow-up. Longitudinal changes in smoking related attitudes, the number of new smokers and quitters and the change in the number of never-smokers will be compared between the two groups as secondary outcomes. Measurements are conducted by the teachers via paper pencil questionnaires.
Results:
11,268 students of both genders with an average age of 12.32 years in grade seven of 144 secondary schools in Germany were included at baseline. At present, cigarette smoking prevalence in our sample is 2.6% with 4.7% of the students currently using e-cigarettes (1.3% use both). The process evaluation surveys were filled out by 324 medical student volunteers (‘mentors’), 63 medical student supervisors (‘educators’), 4896 students (‘pupils’) and 141 teachers.
Conclusions:
The Education Against Tobacco cluster-randomized trial is the largest school-based tobacco prevention study in Germany conducted to date. Clinical Trial: The Education Against Tobacco randomized trial is registered at the US National Institutes of Health (ClinicalTrials.gov) # NCT02697409.
Citation
