Addictive smoking of the adult is a behavioral problem and likely to have started early in life. Current industries promotes this legalized addiction among adolescents because they know that hooking early in life the children provides the long term use of cigarette smoking. Several cessation strategies has been developed to avert the addiction, one among which is cognitive therapy. The study was designed to determine the effect of cognitive-behavior therapy on the smoking behaviors among high school student of Poblacion Titay, Zamboanga Sibugay. The respondents were 14-20 years old, 3rd year high school students. There were 20 respondents selected for this study. The experiment used was a cognitive behavior therapy approach with series of sessions and administration of worksheets to assess the changes of smoking habits among the students. The behavioral patterns were assessed by a research assistant who monitored the students smoking tendencies within the school vicinity, as well as self-reports by the student respondents themselves. The study lasted for 6 months duration with 7 sessions handled by the researcher. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data gathered. Results showed that out of the 20 participants, all completed the protocol and all decreased their smoking frequency. The mean rate of smoking dropped from 6 to 4 cigarettes per day. The study concludes that cognitive behavior therapy counseling to high school students significantly reduced their smoking frequency but was not able to achieve entirely the cessation of smoking. The addition of pharmacotherapy in the study may improve the outcomes and are recommended for future efforts.

Keyword: cognitive behavior theraphy smoking behavior pharmacotherapy smoking titay zamboanga Sibugay Province