Research report on smoking habits in schools students in Ulaanbaatar / Монголын Анагаах Ухаан

ABSTRACT

The research on the smoking habits among 8th-to-12th grade students of schools was conducted using a random sampling method among the 13-18 years old school students.Materials and MethodsThe research was performed using a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods. The quantitative part of the research was performed by conducting surveys among randomly selected secondary school students according to prepared and approved questionnaires. The qualitative study was performed by organizing focus groups based on prepared discussion guidelines. Sampling the survey participants were students in grades 8-12 from both public and private schools in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia. A total of 1190 students from the 12 secondary schools of 6 districts were selected through random sampling.Resultsto the question of whether the participants have tried to smoke once or twice, 36,1% (407) responded positively. Among these respondents, 49.6% (272) are male and 23.2 (135) are female. This confirms the statistical data that male students are more exposed to the habit of smoking than female students (x2=57.8, p<0.01). The percentage of the currently smoking students is 11.2% (77) of whom 17.9% are male and 4.8% are female. Of the current smokers, 6.8% smoke every day (x2=48.3, p<0.01). The average age of taking up smoking was 14.0[±1.8] of which males students began using tobacco at 13.9[±1.8] years and females at 14.3[±1.6]. Among the smoking students, 10[±2.1]% were from public schools and 17.3[±2.8]% were from private schools (x2=8.1, p<0.01).