A Study Of Cognitive Determinants And Effectiveness Of Interventions For Areca Quid Chewing Behavior Among Primary And Middle School Students In Xiangtan Hunan

It has been well documented that Areca quid chewing is harmful for health.Areca quid chewing behavior has been implicated as a contributing factor in oral cavity cancer and other oral diseases.Therefore,it is necessary to understand the psychosocial process of areca quid chewing among adolescents and design and implement intervention program for them.This study was aimed to examine the Attitude—Social influence—self-Efficacy(ASE)model for the areca quid chewing among primary and middle school students in Xiangtan,and to evaluate the effect of the intervention program performed in schools.Thus,to some extent it can enrich the domestic relative studies and also can afford some empirical evidence to establish intervention program which can decrease areca quid chewing behavior of the students.To explore the relationships between social cognitive determinants and areea quid chewing behavior of primary and middle school students,1305(5~th,6~th,7~th,8~th,10~th,11~th) graders who were selected from two primary schools and two middle schools in Xiangtan were asked to write a consent and then distribute a self-administrated questionnaire.And to explore the effects of prevention and intervention program on students' areca quid chewing behavior,217 (5~th,8~th,11~th) graders were selected from the subjects above.Two classes students were randomly selected from each grade,then students from one class were assigned to the intervention groups,and students from the other class were assigned to the control groups. The intervention groups were implemented by an intervention program of areca quid chewing behavior.The intervention program included 3 sessions,45minutes per session,one session each tow weeks.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:1.64.1%of the surveyed students had ever tried areca quid chewing behavior,and the total rate of having the habit of chewing behavior is 8.4%.The students' areca quid chewing behavior and chewing quantity vary from male to female,from grade to grade.2.Intention to chew areca quid has direct influence on areca quid chewing behavior. While both social influence and refusal self-efficacy had a direct impact on intention and chewing behavior as well as an indirect effect on chewing behavior through intention. Additionally,both positive and negative outcome expectancies predicted areca quid chewing via refusal self-efficacy or intention.3.Our results show the multi-level systematic intervention program that this research has adopted is effective and workable.The intervention program can change the outcome expectancy,decrease social influence and enhance refusal self-efficacy.After the intervention the rate which the intervention group subjects chewed in the last month decreased signifi-cantly.