Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop strategies and policies for smoking prevention that are tailored to the characteristics of different groups of smokers. The structured survey was conducted with regular smokers. The results were as follows: It has been demonstrated that Risk Perception Attitude framework can be used as a major research framework to predict behavioral changes related to the prevention of smoking. The smokers were divided into four attitude groups based on perceived risks and self-efficacy: indifference, proactive, avoidance, and responsive. The smoker groups showed significant differences in information seeking, information avoidance, prevention behavior and addiction degree. Especially, the difference in prevention behavior depended on the self-efficacy when the perceived risk level was high. Information avoidance was the lowest when the perceived risk level was high and the self-efficacy was low. Information seeking was lowest when the perceived risk level was low. When the level of self-efficacy was high, if the perceived risk level was high, prevention behavior was actively performed. Therefore, the self-efficacy was related to preventive behavior, and the perceived low-risk played a role in hindering information seeking. Smoking prevention strategies are important to raise awareness of the risk of smoking and to improve the positive willingness of smokers to quit smoking through self-efficacy.