Neuroelectrical indices evaluation during antismoking public service announcements on a young population

Abstract

Cigarettes smoking continues to exact a devastating roll of society of entire world. Recent estimates suggest that about 5.8 trillion cigarettes were smoked worldwide and cigarette consumption is still on the rise. This behavior occurs in spite of well-documented evidence indicating that cigarette smoking can lead to severe health consequences, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and chronic obstructive lung disease and, for this reason, preventing smoking is a public health priority. Furthermore, the 90% of smokers are estimated to have begun smoking before the age of 18, therefore it is necessary to reduce the number of youths who start smoking before this age, in order to reduce the total number of smokers and harm done to society. Studies have been done to understand what factors make an advertisement more effective and more readily internalized by smokers. The aim of this study is to evaluate the reaction of subjects during the watching of Public Service Announcements (PSAs) against smoking, with the gathering of the electroencephalographic (EEG) rhythms variations. Nowadays, public service announcements (PSAs) are considered “Effective”, “Ineffective” or “Awarded” on the basis of official reports concerning behavioral/attitudinal changes toward healthier patterns and health-related savings following the exposure to the PSA. Results showed the Effort index varied significantly during the observation of picture PSAs and TV advertising one. During the observation of the pictures PSAs, ANOVA results showed a statistical increase for the Effort Index related to the perception of the “Effective” PSAs and “Ineffective” one (p=0.0001), and “Effective” and “Awarded” one (p=0.01). During the observation of video PSAs, ANOVA analysis highlighted a statistically significance difference between Ineffective and Awarded stimuli (p=0.010). In addition, for the observation of images PSAs, the main results of interaction Category (Effective, Ineffective and Awarded) x Smoking Attitude (Heavy Smoker, Low Smoker and No Smoker) have been reported within the Heavy Smoker group in response to the different PSAs (all p<0.05).