Medical students against smoking: an experience report

Abstract

Objective: To report the experience of medical students in a health education action regarding smoking prevention, focusing on the use of hookahs and electronic cigarettes in the school environment. Experience report: The educational intervention, based on an expository-dialogic approach, elucidated respiratory anatomophysiology and meticulously detailed the physiological harms of smoking devices, including cellular toxicity and airway inflammation. Furthermore, the severe socioeconomic impacts associated with addiction were addressed. During the dynamics, students showed high attention and active participation, an essential factor to demystify the false perception of safety frequently attributed to electronic cigarettes. The application of evaluations proved a significant immediate cognitive gain by the target audience. Moreover, many young people spontaneously expressed the intention to act as multiplying agents, propagating the knowledge in their own homes. Final considerations: The strong point was the effective combination of theoretical foundation and dialogic dynamics to raise awareness among adolescents in an accessible manner. As a limitation, it is emphasized that the evaluation was restricted to immediate cognitive gain, without longitudinal follow-up.