Abstract
To identify the prevalence of different stages of smoking and differences in associated risk factors. Thos longitudinal study started in February 2011 and the subjects were 2552 form one students aged between twelve to thirteen years of from 15 government secondary schools of Kinta, Perak. Data on demographic, parental, school and peer factors were collected using a self-administered questionnaire. We examined the effects of peer, school and parental factors on the five stages of smoking; never smokers, susceptible never smokers, experimenters, current smokers and ex-smokers, at baseline. In the sample, 19.3% were susceptible never smokers, 5.5% were current smokers 6% were experimenters and 3.1% were ex-smokers. Gender, ethnicity, best friends' smoking status, high peer pressure, higher number of relatives who smoked and parental monitoring were found to be associated with smoking stages. Presence of parent-teen conflict was only associated with susceptible never smokers and experimenters whereas absence of home discussion on smoking hazards was associated with susceptible never smokers and current smokers. We identified variations in the factors associated with the different stages of smoking. Our results highlight that anti-smoking strategies should be tailored according to the different smoking stages.
Highlights
Over the past few decades cancer has become the leading cause of death across many Asian countries (Chassin et al, 1990)
The prevalence of current smokers in this study was 5.5%, which is higher compared to the national prevalence among thirteen year old of 3.5% as reported in the Third National Health Morbidity Survey (NHMS III, 2006) but lower than the findings in Malaysian Global Youth Tobacco Survey, 2009 (18.2%)
The prevalence of current smoking among the male students was much higher compared to the female students. Peer factors such as best friends’ smoking status, peer pressure to smoke; both school factors in this study and family factors such as siblings smoking, number of relatives who smoked, parent-teen conflicts, parental monitoring and home discussion on smoking hazards were the significant predictors of smoking stages
Summary
Over the past few decades cancer has become the leading cause of death across many Asian countries (Chassin et al, 1990). Tobacco use is highly associated with lung cancer and more than half of this malignant disease is said to be caused by tobacco smoking (Kaplan et al, 2001). To identify the prevalence of different stages of smoking and differences in associated risk factors. We examined the effects of peer, school and parental factors on the five stages of smoking; never smokers, susceptible never smokers, experimenters, current smokers and ex-smokers, at baseline. Presence of parent-teen conflict was only associated with susceptible never smokers and experimenters whereas absence of home discussion on smoking hazards was associated with susceptible never smokers and current smokers. Conclusions: We identified variations in the factors associated with the different stages of smoking. Our results highlight that anti-smoking strategies should be tailored according to the different smoking stages
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