Adopting the stage model for smoking acquistion in Japanese adolescents

The purpose of the present study was to apply the stages of change model to smoking acquisition in Japanese adolescents. The participants were 556 senior and 1002 junior high school students who responded anonymously to the questionnaire. The findings of this study confirm that the stage model is indeed applicable to smoking acquisition in Japanese adolescents. It was clearly seen that the process involves four stages: pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, and action. Furthermore, the results showed that measures of self-efficacy decreased, while temptation increased from precontemplation to action stages. The pros of smoking behavior increased toward action stage, while the cons decreased.