Description

The vast majority of adult smokers began smoking in
adolescence or young adulthood. Current Personal, Social
and Health Education (PSHE) in schools attempts to both
reduce the number of experimenters and to minimise the
proportion that become regular smokers. In order to do this
teachers are forced to adopt a ‘blanket’ approach to prevention
activities. Curricular time is thus spent giving anti-smoking
messages to a substantial number of children who are either
unlikely to ever become smokers, or alternatively who are
unlikely to influenced by such interventions alone. A
strategic approach to anti-smoking education would enable
teachers to target those young people who are at risk of
becoming smokers yet whose behaviour is susceptible to
specific intervention. It was hypothesised that personality
would be a significant predictor of smoking uptake.

The objectives were the development and testing of a selfreport
measure of personality suitable for adolescents as a
predictor of smoking uptake.

A prospective study in two waves assessing personality,
demographic variables and smoking behaviour was designed
and the setting was in four English state secondary schools
where the subjects were 1,968 eleven to sixteen year olds;
963 boys and 1,005 girls. The main outcome measures
were smoking behaviour at the end of the school year. The
results showed that smoking uptake could be predicted across
one school year with up to 95% accuracy by the use of a selfreport
personality measure designed for young British
adolescents, in conjunction with conventional variables.
Therefore a simple to use self-report personality inventory
may significantly improve the effectiveness of schools antismoking
programmes and the validity of their evaluation.