The effect of smoking by family members and friends on the incidence of smoking among high school students.

OBJECTIVE: Smoking is the most important preventable cause of death. According to the global youth tobacco survey (GYTS) presented by WHO, 25% of smokers smoked their first cigarette before the age of 10; hence, it is of great importance to investigate the effect of smoking of family members and friends on smoking incidence of adolescents. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This analytic cross-sectional study was conducted on the basis of GYTS questionnaire. The studied population consisted of 3000 high school students who were selected randomly. Data was collected by applying the questionnaires which were fulfilled by students anonymously without supervision of school authorities. The results were analyzed with SPSS 11.5 software employing chi-square test. RESULTS: The studied population included 1842 boys (61.4%) and 1158 girls (38.6%) with the mean age of 16.1 years. In terms of smoking habit, 827 students (27.6%) were occasional smokers, 122 students (4.2%) were regular smokers, 518 students (17.3%) used another type of tobacco, and 1533 students (51.1%) were non-smokers. In terms of gender, 77.6% of occasional smokers were males and 22.4% of them were females. At the same time, males and females made up 80.3% and 19.7% of regular smokers, respectively. Also, males and females made up 71.1% and 28.9% of students using another type of tobacco, respectively. In terms of smoker family members and friends, 1860 students (85.6%) of non-smoker students had no smoker in their families and only 313 (14.4%) had at least one smoker in family, while 61.5% of smoker students had at least one smoker family member (p <.001). Similarly, 50.3% of smoker students had a number of smoker friends, while only 13% of non-smoker students had smoker friends. In terms of economic status this study showed that 22.4% of smoker students and 20.7% of non-smoker ones had high pocket money. CONCLUSION: This study showed that the incidence of smoking among high school students significantly correlated with the incidence of smoking among their friendsandfamilymembers (p < 0.001). This study also showed that the economic status (based on the amount of pocket money) has little orno effect on the incidence of smoking among high school students (p value: 0.863).