Abstract:
Tobacco contains addictive substance, caused negative effect on physical, mental and social health. Students should avoid smoking. Then, this study the aimed to investigate the relationship between life skills and avoidance smoking behaviors. Two hundred and seventy-one of junior high school students were randomly sampled from the public schools in Sriracha district, Chonburi province. Administrator questionnaire were used to collect data and students complete the questionnaire in their classrooms. Data were analyzed by percentage, mean, standard deviation and Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient.
The results of the study were as follows, the majority of students were female and lived with parent with the percentage of 55.4 and 91.9. Students had smoking (7.7%), friend smoking (21.4%) and family member smoking (41.0%) with the mean of 1.5±1.1 persons/family. Students had a very good level in life skills and smoking avoidance behaviors at the percentage of 72.0 and 74.2, respectively. There were positive relationship between smoking avoidance behaviors and life skills, in both overall life skill (r = 0.49, p < 0.01) and in three domains; cognitive domain (r = 0.31, p < 0.01 ), affective domain (r = 0.41, p < 0.01) and psychomotor domain (r = 0.50, p < 0.01).
Accordingly, it should give precedence on the promoting life skills to increase the avoidance smoking behavior in students.