[Effects of new warning labels on cigarette packets among high school adolescents]

In developing countries, smoking habit develops between the ages of 12-16. In recent years, various ways to struggle against smoking have been implemented and one of them is to print warnings on cigarette packets. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of these warnings among high school adolescents and their efficiency to make them quit smoking. The total number of the subjects were 917, 103 of whom were female and 814 of whom were male students. The mean age of the subjects was 16.6 + or - 1.1. The rate of the smokers was 24.1%. The rate of the subjects who had tried smoking at least once was 50.6%. When if or not the students were educated about the harmful effects of smoking by any means was evaluated, the rate of educated subjects was 58.3% and 41.7% of the subjects were not educated by any means. All the warnings on cigarette packets were considered to be "important" and "very important" by the subjects. The rate of the subjects who think that the warning phrases will have positive effects on the way to quit was 38.9%, while the rate of the subjects who think that they will have no positive effect was 61.1%. The rate of the subjects who had quitted smoking after reading these warnings was 22.5%, 44.4% of the subjects stated that they were effected but did not quit, and 33.1% of the subjects stated that they were not effected at all by the warnings and continued to smoke. The warnings on cigarette packets were found to serve as an additional information source about the harmful effects of smoking and had beneficial effects on the subjects' decision to quit. It was concluded that the method is an important step in the struggle against smoking.