| A survey of smoking behaviors of officers in Fort Sapphasitthi Prasong, Ubon Ratchathani, revealed that a large number of smokers have adversely affected the development of quality of life of the Army’s military officers. This has motivated the researcher to study knowledge, attitudes, values, health awareness and smoking cessation needs of military officers. This research study which is based on Green & Gruter theory aimed to investigate the knowledge, attitudes and smoking cessation needs of military officers in Fort Sapphasitthi Prasong, Ubon Ratchathani. The sample consisted of 288 military officers in Fort Sapphasitthi Prasong. The study instruments were questionnaires designed to identify knowledge, attitudes as well as the leading, facilitating and supporting factors that affect smoking. Completed questionnaires were collected in October, 2005. The questionnaires had been tested for reliability with Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient of 0.86. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, and chi-square.
The results showed that most of the military officers in Fort Sapphasitthi Prasong were operating officers aged between 41-50 years old with an average income of 110,200 –
200,000 baht per year, education lower than secondary school and 1-10 year duration of smoking. Their smoking was mostly caused by desires to experiment. They smoked every day and smoked between half a cigarette to 10 cigarettes per day. Most of these smokers (92%) belonged to the quitting rather than the non-quitting group. As to the investigation of leading factors related to knowledge, attitudes, values, health awareness, family members, supporting factors and facilitating factors, the results showed that both groups had only minimal knowledge about cigarettes (92.8 % of the study subjects gave incorrect answers). The levels of awareness of cigarette’s negative effect on health were, however, very high in both groups ( =3.90, =3.88). Meanwhile the levels of attitudes and values were average ( =2.86, = 2.94, an = 2.82, = 2.83, respectively). The smoking of family members influenced the smoking of individuals at an average level. Relationship study between personal characteristics, knowledge, attitudes, leading factors, facilitating factors, and supporting factors on the study groups (the quitting and non-quitting groups) indicated no difference in terms of information and factor. This was due to the similarity of population variables and the similarly low levels of knowledge about cigarettes and smoking among both groups. In addition, levels of heath awareness were also low and not sufficient to induce smoking cessation. Both groups agreed that determination and mental strength would help them successfully quit smoking. With respect to attitudes, it was found that no-smoking campaigns, rather than enforcements, should be adopted with very high levels of agreement ( = 4.09, = 4.03). They generally agreed that smoking happened mostly in entertainment venues at night; therefore, decreasing night-time entertainments should be valued among military officers. As for the supporting factors, it was found that military officers had been instructed about and very highly aware of the no-smoking rules and regulations in hospitals. This should, therefore, be applied in the case of work places. As for the facilitating factors, both groups agreed that availability of free time at work induced more smoking. Health promotion activities or exercises should, therefore, be conducted during the work-free period in order to make the no-smoking campaign for military officers effective. |