Abstract
Background and Objectives: A staged model of smoking adoption has been widely applied in the studies of adolescent smoking. This paper examined the effects of socio-environmental and personal factors on three stages of the smoking continuum among a sample of grade-10 male students, aged 14-19 years, at 20 high schools in Shiraz city.
Materials and Methods: This is the first step of a longitudinal study related to adolescents smoking and predictors of transition in the stages. A self- administered questionnaire with 38 questions was distributed to 1132 grade-10 students among 45 classes from a possible population of 14000 students. Multivariate discriminant function analysis was used to analyze the data.
Results: Overall 19.4 percent of students ased to smoke. Eighty Point six Percent, 16.9%, and 2.5% were never smoker experimenter and regular smoker, respectively. The discriminant function analysis indicated that attitude toward smoking, ever use of alcohol, ever use of illicit drugs and best friends smoked dominate the construct; the contribution of self-esteem is less important. Finally, these variables permitted the correct classification of 70.3 % out of students into the stages of smoking acquisition.
Conclusion: The content of smoking prevention programs for adolescents should be adapted to each stages of smoking acquisition. This finding has important public health significance, but further research is required to determine if the association is causal.
MJTUMS, NO. 64, 10-15, 2005