Selected health-risk behaviors among middle and high school students in Chan-Aye-Tharzan township of Mandalay city and their determinants.

ABSTRACT

A cross-sectional study was done during 2010 to determine the self-reported prevalence of health-risk behaviors such as smoking, alcohol drinking and betel chewing among young students in Mandalay and examine their determinants. Six hundred students from grade six to eleven from a randomly selected Basic Education High School were recruited into the study by systematic random sampling. Data were collected by anonymous self-administered questionnaire and were analyzed by SPSS version 17.0 software. The prevalence of current smoking, alcohol drinking and betel chewing habits among middle and high school students were 2.3%, 1.2% and 6.7% respectively. Those who reported ever smoking, drinking and betel chewing were 5.7%, 3% and 10.3% respectively. The mean ages of initiating smoking, alcohol drinking and betel chewing were 13.1, 14.3 and 13.2 years respectively. These health-risk behaviors were significantly associated not only with students’ characteristics such as age (p < 0.001), sex (p < 0.001) and education level or grade (p < 0.001) but also among each other (p < 0.001). The students whose fathers smoked were more likely to report smoking (p = 0.052). Similarly, drinking (p = 0.004) and betel chewing (p = 0.005) habits of students were significantly associated with similar behaviors of their fathers. This study created the composite variable reflecting the concurrent multiple health-risk behaviors based on the smoking, drinking and betel chewing habits of fathers. The greater the number of risk behaviors of fathers, the more likely the students to become smokers (p < 0.001), drinkers (p = 0.024), and betel chewers (p = 0.002). If their fathers were currently unemployed, school children were more likely to be smokers (p = 0.002) and betel chewers (p = 0.012). Although the prevalence of smoking and drinking among high school students in Chan-Aye-Tharzan township, Mandalay were lower than that of neighboring countries, the existing tobacco and alcohol control programs require intensification to reduce the extent of health-risk behaviors. Fathers seemed to play a vital role in controlling these health-risk behaviors of students that posed threat to their health. Therefore, fathers should be encouraged to join the effective risk reduction program of high school students to avoid smoking, alcohol drinking and betel chewing.