On Tuesday last week my classmate and I finally completed the Health Promotion course by applying our knowledge and work in the community.

We were given assignments on certain health topics, such as alcohol, sex education, smoking, obesity, diabetes. We chose Smoking prevention. After doing a lot of reading and googling (actually, I’d call it research, but my classmate laughed when I dared to use the ‘R’ -word) we wrote an essay, made a film and presented our findings to the class. After all this, we were required to choose a group of people who we would present this to, with the intention of promoting health.

We contacted an international school in Espoo, and after some communicating with a teacher, agreed to present our video and give a talk about smoking to a class of 16-17 year olds during a class ‘health education’. We showed them the video, allowed discussion afterwards, handed out free nicotine replacement gum samples that were nicotine free, and handed out a questionnaire which they filled out anonymously.

Here are some results from the questionnaire:

• Total no. of students 30
• Mean age 17
• Did not smoke 21 (2 admitted they used to smoke)
• Smokers 9
• Smokers that tried quitting 11 (2 were successful)
• smokers that considered quitting in the future 7
• not considered quitting 2
• When asked what effect anti smoking campaigns had on them 17 answered that they made them think and 9 had said no effect, 4 did not respond to the question.

The students participated quite actively in the discussion, asking many questions, of which many were similar (I think they were secretly trying to keep us there as long as possible so that they would not have to do proper school work….based on my own experiences as a school pupil). It was an interesting experience, were we got to talk about nursing, and studying nursing. I was asked to talk about emergency medicine, as I had mentioned that my interests tended in that direction.

The teacher asked us afterwards if we were prepared to do the same the following year. Although I’m still not sure if that would be possible (might go on exchange next spring), I admitted that it would be fun, So I said ‘Yea!’. So did my classmate.

We also gave the teacher a whole bunch of flyers and booklets that we received from the ‘Tupakka klinikka’ (smoking clinic, organised by the health care centre of Helsinki city, that offers counselling and help for smokers that want to quit) and a poster that I ordered from the CDC (20 minutes after quitting). The teacher agreed to set up a table or place were these materials can be available for all students in the school.

Here is a link to the PDF version of our essay Tobacco use and health promotion

And below is the video that we used to brainwash them young minds with. Enjoy!

Health tip: Need I say more? If you want a more comprehensive understanding of this post, I suggest you read our essay.