Smoking among school children and parental socioeconomic status

Background: There is a growing epidemic of tobacco use among adolescents in the developing world. However, there is no up to date information on smoking among adolescents in Pakistan. Adolescence is the time of life when people are more interested in taking risks and testing the boundaries of the world outside as well as their own limits

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Objectives: To assess prevalence of smoking and some social factors involved in initiation of it in school adolescents and to formulate recommendations to plan the campaign to prevent and control smoking by school based prevention program

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Subjects and Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in two high schools of Liaqatpur. A total of 300 students, 152 from 9[th] and 148 from 10[th] class were taken having mean ages 14.4 and 15.5 respectively. A questionnaire was given and response of each student was noted individually

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Results: In present study out of 300 students, 37[12.33%] were found smokers. Regarding class wise the proportion was 11.18% and 13.51% in 9[th] and 10[th] classes respectively, which shows higher prevalence with increasing age. The prevalence was higher among the children of land Lords and Businessmen. Similarly the education of father has impact upon the smoking prevalence as it was significantly low as compared to those of illiterate parents. The occupational status and education of mother has non-significant effect over prevalence of smoking

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Conclusion: The prevalence of smoking in school adolescents of Pakistan is low as compared to many countries but still it is higher than some other countries of the world. Many social factors are involved in initiation of smoking. So there is need to control and prevent this initiation by causing awareness in the parents and school based prevention programs