Health education actions in the fight against smoking: report of experience

Abstract

Smoking is a chronic disease caused by addiction to nicotine. It is directly related to high mortality, because it compromises physical and mental health of individuals and communities. This study aimed to report the experience of undergraduate nursing students in developing the campaign against smoking at the discipline supervised training course in Nursing I at the Firminópolis-GO campus. The supervised training is carried out for a month, in the last year of the undergraduate course in the form of multidisciplinary rural internship. In the beginning of the activities an operational planning took place, in which the activities related to smoking were highlighted. The strategies consisted of awareness on prevention and damage caused by tobacco. The activities of health promotion and prevention of injuries and diseases related to smoking consisted of action in health education directed to students from public schools, training of Community Health Agents to fight against tobacco use on May 31 – World No Tobacco Day- and participation of the university students in community radio programs. It is considered that the actions taken were of extreme importance in the care provided in primary care, given that the applied strategies effectively reached different audiences.