Journal of Education and Health Promotion

Educating school students and gauging their perception about the harmful effects of smoking using a “FacialAgeing App (mobile application):” An experience from Malaysia

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

. Roy Rillera Marzo
. Sudip Bhattacharya
. Shalini Ravichandran
. Pavithra Lakshmanan
. Valerie Rukshana Jeffery
. Praveena Moralitheran
. Amaluddin Ahmad
. Jegathambigai Ramashwar Naidu

Department of Community Medicine, Himalayan Institute of Medical Sciences, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India

Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Smoking is one of the leading factors of mortality in Malaysia. Most youngsters start
at adolescence, fascinated by the concept of smoking. Interventions that harness the broad availability
of mobile phones, as well as adolescents’ interest in their appearance, may be an innovative way
to advance school‑based prevention. This study aims to determine the perceptions of facial‑aging
apps among secondary school students.
METHODOLOGY: For this research, descriptive cross‑sectional study using simple random sampling
method was used. Population sampling was targeted toward three government schools. The total
number of respondents is 383, with all of them aged between 13 and‑ 16 years of age. Legal
considerations were taken to maintain the confidentiality of respondents. The specific objectives
are: 1. To determine the level of change of intention on smoking, 2. To know the perceived reactions
of the peer groups on the appearances of students as nonsmokers, 3. To determine whether the
students learned new benefits of nonsmokingand, 4. To measure the impact of a facial‑aging app
among students.
RESULTS: The number of respondents who smoke was 40 (10.4%), while the number of respondents
who do not smoke was 343 (89.6%). About 89% of the respondents agree that their three‑dimensional
selfie image motivates them not to smoke. In addition, 87.8% of respondents admit that the perceived
reactions of their classmates make them think that they look better as nonsmokers. After learning
the effects of smoking, about 86.4% of the respondents acknowledged that they would educate
their peer groups. Furthermore, 85.9% of the respondents found this “Smokerface” app enjoyable.
CONCLUSION: The facial‑aging intervention was effective in motivating Malaysian pupils to stay
away from tobacco use. Thus, the analysis on the study of facial app usage in smoking prevention
among youngsters concludes that most of the adolescents concur that the “Smokerface” app helps
in the prevention of smoking among youths.

Keywords

Aging apps
education
health promotion
smoking
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Journal of Education and Health Promotion
Volume 9, Issue 12
December 2019
Pages 1-6

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