RESUMO
Background: Cigarette smoking is the first preventable death in the world. The number of cigarettes smoked per day and the years of smoking are considered as the main risk factors in causing the related disease, mortality, and morbidity. Since it seems that the age at which smoking is started has decreased in our society, it is important to recognize the cause and factors that affect the tendency towards cigarette smoking in this period of life
Materials and Methods: This research was conducted according to WHO questionnaire and Global Youth Tobacco Survey project [GYTS]. A total of 1119 high school students were chosen randomly from different educational districts of Tehran from the year 2002 to 2003 and questioned in this regard
Results: 28.2% of students [25.2% female and 30.8% male] smoked occasionally and 4.4% of them [1.5% female and 6.06% male] smoked daily. 67.7% of smoker students started smoking before the age of 15 and 88.7% of them before the age of 17. The most important reason for smoking among 55.3% of students was curiosity and leisurely smoking was observed in 19.3%. Also, presence of a smoker in the family is one of the effective factors that affects the initiation of smoking in students; this was statistically significant [p= 0.000]
Conclusion: According to the results of this research, students must be properly trained by appropriate methods in this regard in order to prevent the initiation of smoking in school-aged children
RESUMO
Background: Cigarette smoking is the first preventable death in the world. Presence of a positive attitude towards tobacco use in young adults is one of the effective factors in starting smoking. Since it seems that the age of starting smoking has decreased in our society, it is important to recognize the attitudes towards cigarette smoking in this period of life
Materials and Methods: Therefore, this research was conducted according to WHO questionnaire and Global Youth Tobacco Survey Project [GYTS] and 1119 high school students were chosen randomly from different educational districts of Tehran in the year 2003 and were questioned in this regard
Results: According to the results of this study 28.2% of students [25.2% female and 30.8% male] smoked occasionally and 4.4% of them [1.5% female and 6.06% male] smoked daily. 44.9% of the students believe that smoker students have less friends [than others] and 41.1% believe that smoker students are less comfortable in the parties. 77.7% of the students believe that there is no difference in attractiveness of smoker and non smoker students. 41.1% of the students consider the smoker boy as a "looser" and 38% of them consider the smoker girl as "stupid". 80.4% of students assume that quitting smoking is very easy
Conclusion: Although the results of this study show that the attitudes of students towards smoking are not positive but this attitude has not prevented them from smoking and more serious action must be taken. Also, there is no significant difference between the attitudes of smoker and non smoker students