Evaluation of Cigarette Smoking Attitudes and Behaviors among Students of a State High School in Ýstanbul

Objective: We aimed to evaluate smoking habits of students, reasons of smoking and students’ level of knowledge on the adverse effects of smoking in a state high school in Ýstanbul.
Methods: A 15-item questionnaire was administered to the students attending a state high school in Ýstanbul to evaluate their attitudes and behaviors towards cigarette smoking. The questionnaire was completed by each class of students at the same class period under the supervision of their teachers.
Results: The questionnaire was completed by 415 students at the respective school. While 349 students (84%) never smoke, 66 (15.9%) students were either current smokers or quitters. Fifty five of the students (13.2%) were active smokers. When we looked at the reasons of smoking, they reported that 63.6% smoked cigarettes because their friends did; 47.2% smoked cigarettes due to exam-related stress; and 40% smoked cigarettes due to family problems. The rate of smoking friends in the smoker group was significantly higher than in the non-smoker group (p=0.0001). A logistic regression analysis showed that having smoking friends was associated with an 8-fold increase in the risk of smoking compared to having no smoking friends.
Conclusion: The most common reasons of smoking at the school were friends who were smokers, exam-related stress and family problems. Having friends who smoke was associated with an 8-fold increase in the risk of smoking. We believe that counselling services’ close engagement with family problems of students and exam-related stress issues and helping them to cope with these problems may prevent their vulnerability to toxic substances.