Parental and school factors related to adolescent smoking in Malatya, Turkey

Objective: The present study aimed the question of the prevalence of current tobacco use and to identify relation to demographic, environmental and school factors for cigarette smoking among a large sample of High School students in Malatya, a big Turkish city at East of Turkey.

 Methods: This is a cross-sectional study completed at the high schools in  Malatya city, ,population approximately 450 000. Of the 24  high schools in Malatya,  6107 students were sampled using a stratified method according to the number of students in each school.  A self-completed questionnaire was used for data collection. Multipl logistic regression analysis was used to determine how demographic, parental and school influences interact to predict adolescent smoking behaviour.

 Results: The prevalence of current smoking, defined as having smoked cigarettes on one or more days of the past 30 days, is 30.9 % among boys and 16 % among girls. Ever smoking rates were 67.2 % among boys and 45.8 % among girls. In logistic regression analysis, the major related factors of current smoking were father’s education (graduated college school OR=1.4), type of family ( monoparental family, OR= 1.77), parental smoking (one parent smoker, OR=1.35; both parent smoker, OR= 2.27), having smoker siblings (OR= 2.35), Father’s approval of smoking (OR = 11.24), mother’s approval of smoking ( OR=7.05), best friend’s smoking (OR= 8.33), best friend’s approvel of smoking (OR=4.79), not liking school (OR=2.54), below avarage school level ( OR=1.96), late to class occasionally ( OR=3.32), being in a physical fight occasionally ( OR=6.21).

 Conclusion: The study findings confirm previous findings identify associations with smoking, especially parental approvel of smoking, best friend’s smoking and best friend’s approvel is found important on adolescent’s smoking. These finding suggest that the effectiveness of preventive interventions might be improved by targeting parent, and school factors