Perceived message effectiveness and readiness to quit among youth in Guangdong: The mediating role of self-efficacy and the moderating effect of nicotine dependence

Description

Yang Zhao, Xuelan Wu, and Xiaoyu Tao ask why some anti-smoking messages move young smokers toward quitting while others fall flat. Their focus is perceived message effectiveness, how persuasive a message feels to its audience. The smokers were aged fifteen to twenty-four in Guangdong, China, surveyed at schools and community centers in late summer 2025. Confidence in one's ability to quit is the suspected middleman.

The data fit the theory. Feeling a message was effective correlated moderately with both quitting confidence and readiness to quit, and confidence carried about fifty-five percent of the message effect on readiness. Nicotine dependence changed the picture: among lightly dependent youth the chain from message to confidence to readiness held, but among the highly dependent it broke down. The authors argue that message design alone will not move heavily addicted smokers, whose dependence must be addressed for persuasion to bite.

Catalog record

Source: https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13166815