The Effect of Personal/Social Skills Lessons: The Missing Link in Prevention Curricula on Urban Middle School Student Tobacco Use

Abstract

A 2-year controlled study was conducted with urban and suburban middle school students to test the effect of a series of personal and social skill development lessons on behavior and behavioral intentions related to tobacco use. The intervention involved six lessons taught in the seventh grade and five lessons taught in the eighth grade. Although control group students demonstrated significant increases in number of cigarettes smoked, quantity of chewing tobacco/snuff used, combined use of alcohol and tobacco, and intention to use tobacco when older, experimental group students to whom the lessons were presented with fidelity showed no such expected increases. There were no significant findings on an intention-to-treat basis. The results of this study suggest that Personal/Social Skills Lessons: The Missing Link in Prevention Curricula, when taught with fidelity, provides students with skills to resist the uptake of certain health-compromising behaviors. The results also suggest that in further study of the lessons' efficacy, more rigorous teacher in-service training and classroom monitoring may be necessary to ensure that the lessons are implemented appropriately.