Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2012

Journal

Addiction Research and Therapy

Inclusive Pages

Article number S8

DOI

10.4172/2155-6105.S8-004

Abstract

Susceptibility to smoking is a risk factor of actual adolescent smoking behaviors. This study aimed to estimate the rate of smoking susceptibility and its predictors in China with a sample of 4,695 junior high school students in Ningbo, China. Core questions from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) were adapted to the China context and administered to these students. The rate of smoking susceptibility, measured by “Do you foresee yourself taking up smoking in the next 12 months”, is 6.1%. Results from logistic regression suggested that among boys, adolescents’ health knowledge that smoking can cause lung cancer (OR=2.73), the belief that smoking can help people relax (OR=2.32), and self-report of never having seen anti-smoking information on campus (OR=1.80) predicted increased susceptibility to smoking. Conversely, the belief that boys who smoke are less attractive (OR=0.64), that parents will have a problem with their child smoking (OR=0.50), having no friends or classmates who smoke (OR=0.22), and not seeing teachers smoke in the previous week (OR=0.61) predicted decreased susceptibility to smoking. Findings for girls were similar. This study suggested the need for comprehensive programs aiming to improve family, peer, and school environments to decrease smoking susceptibility among adolescents.

Comments

Reproduced with permission of Addiction Research and Therapy.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Open Access

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