More than words? The status and impact of smoking policies in Scottish schools

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the current status of smoking policies in Scottish schools, and the relationship between policy status, enforcement of smoking restrictions and perceptions of smoking behaviour among pupils and teachers. A representative sample of 15-year-old school pupils from 77 Scottish secondary schools was surveyed in 1998 regarding their perceptions of smoking in several locations within and outside the school building. Two staff members from each school were also surveyed regarding school smoking policies for pupils and teachers, the nature of the school's smoking restrictions, and the extent to which the restrictions were enforced. The results showed that more schools had a written policy on teacher smoking than on pupil smoking. All schools in the sample banned smoking by pupils, but the majority allowed smoking by teachers in restricted areas. Irrespective of the type of policy or restrictions on smoking, pupils reported seeing smoking among both pupils and teachers on school premises in all of the sample schools. Whether or not a school had a written policy appeared to be unrelated to pupil smoking in the toilets or teacher smoking outdoors on school premises. However, pupils were less likely to be aware of pupils smoking outdoors and teachers smoking in the staff rooms in schools where there were written policies on pupil and teacher smoking, respectively. Consistent enforcement of a ban on pupil smoking was associated with lower levels of perceived smoking among pupils. Where a complete ban on teacher smoking existed, smoking among teachers was seen less often in the staff rooms, but more often in outside areas on school premises. The results have implications for the use of policy in promoting a healthy school environment.

Perceived smoking prevalence at school-level and children's smoking initiation: A multi-level analysis of a cross-sectional data in Taiwan

“…However, Wakefield et al [28] in a study of high school students in U.S., showed the existence of a smoking ban in school had little effect on reducing smoking prevalence unless strongly enforced student smoking restriction on school property. A similar result was found in a representative sample of 15-yearold school students, where consistent enforcement of smoking restrictions was associated with significantly lower levels of perceived smoking practices in school [29].…”

“…In other words, wide variation exists from school to school in terms of policies development and enforcement in preventing students' cigarette smoking behavior. Previous studies have indicated that schools are more likely to have a ban smoking policy directed at students than staff members [29,31]. It is likely that most of these schools have a policy against students smoking on campus, but may still allow staff and visitors to smoke in a designated area [19], where students would be potentially exposed to the smoking behavior.…”

“…It is likely that most of these schools have a policy against students smoking on campus, but may still allow staff and visitors to smoke in a designated area [19], where students would be potentially exposed to the smoking behavior. Having a ban on teacher smoking in schools is associated with students reporting lower perception of teacher smoking [29]. A strict smoke-free school policy should be enforced at all schools to discourage students from becoming smokers.…”

School-based smoking prevention in children and adolescents: review of the scientific literature

“…As shown in the Control of Adolescent Smoking (CAS) Study, a project developed in eight European countries, with the aim of investigating the relationships between national tobacco policies, school smoking policies and adolescent smoking, there are significantly lower prevalence rates in smoke-free schools (Griesbach et al 2002;Wold et al 2004). In order to achieve greater effectiveness, it is widely recognized that a smoking prevention programme should contain the following components (Raczynski and Di Clemente 1997): sustained treatment, characterized by booster sessions over several years (such as considering the intervention as a dose of vaccine to be administered each year for a certain period); reinforcement of the treatment within the community, involving parents and the mass media; and programming smoking prevention activities within a more comprehensive school health promotion programme.…”

Schulische Tabakprävention

“…Wie gut die Einhaltung der Rauchverbote überwacht wurde, war die einzige Variable, die bestehende Unterschiede in der Rauchprävalenz zwischen den untersuchten Schulen erklären konnte. Die Kontrolle der Rauchverbote stand auch in Schottland in Zusammenhang mit dem Konsumverhalten der Schüler [11]. An allen Orten, an denen Lehrer regelmäßig Kontrollen durchführ-ten, sah man signifikant weniger rauchende Schüler als an anderen Orten.…”