SMOKING AMONG THE TEENAGERS OF AGE 14–17 YEARS

SMOKING AMONG THE TEENAGERS OF AGE 14–17 YEARS

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A total of 38100 teenagers participated in the survey out of which, 25800 (74.21%) were males and 12300 (25.74%) were females. Among these study population, 10108 (26.50%) were of 9th standard, 10192 (26.77%) were of 10th standard, and 17800 (46.77%) were in intermediate education and 390 were smokers, remaining 3410 were nonsmokers.

Table 1:

Table shows the percentages of opinions of the students about the various causes for smoking. Majority of the study participants agreed that usually smoking habit starts in youth out of their curiosity (75–94%), as an inspiration for outlook and personality (65–76%), and inspired by ads of role models (61–65%) with no significant difference observed between smokers and nonsmokers opinions (P values were 0.057, 0.40, and 0.22, respectively). Many of the teenagers among smokers (84%) agree that smoking habit starts because of friends. High percentage of smoking teenagers (61%) agree that smoking is fashionable and there was a significant difference (P = 0.05) between smokers and nonsmokers about their views on youth perception about smoking habit. Majority of teenagers among smokers (94%) agree that smoking habit starts because of their loneliness and boredom, whereas 6% of them disagree for this statement. Majority of 86% of the teenagers picked up smoking because of the mood fluctuations or various emotional feeling and a statistical significant difference as observed among the smokers and non‑smokers.

Following this, teenager agreed with the statement that they would like to smoke while studying which helps them to concentrate more. Socializations was another reason because of which teenagers will pick up smoking and there was a statistical difference between the smokers and nonsmokers (P<0.05).

The reasons why teenagers smoke was found to be multifactorial and the combined impact of all was creating high chances of smoking among them. Peer influence and curiosity about smoking were the main reasons for smoking followed by teenagers considering smoking as fashionable. The coordinated efforts of public and private organizations, with the support of health professionals, could contribute greatly to increase the awareness of the dangers and also smoking preventive programs.