Hookah is the enemy of health campaign: a campaign for prevention of hookah smoking among youth

Abstract

Abstract Hookah smoking is now a serious health threat especially for adolescents. Implementation of planned interventions can help reduce hookah smoking. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of a campaign Hookah is the Enemy of Health Campaign (HEHC) based on the protection motivation theory to prevent hookah smoking among the youth in Sirjan city, in 2018. This was a pre- and post-intervention study. Participants were 280 male and female youth who were selected randomly through the health centers of Sirjan. The educational campaign was conducted during 3 months and participants were trained through interpersonal, group, organizational and community channels and mass media. Data were collected by filling out a questionnaire (containing 64 questions) by the participant before the intervention and 3 months after. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage), chi-square and Wilcoxon signed-rank test by SPSS20 software. The prevalence of hookah smoking was 44.3% in the target group. There was a significant change in the mean scores of knowledge and perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, response efficiency, self-efficacy, rewards, fear and protection motivation after the HEHC (p < 0.05), but there was no significant difference in the structure of perceived cost (p > 0.05). Also, the prevalence of hookah smoking among the target group for those who had ever consumed decreased from 8.9 to 4% and for those who used it occasionally decreased from 35 to 19.4%. The HEHC was effective in reducing hookah smoking, raising knowledge and improving the constructs of the protection motivation theory among the youth of Sirjan.