Risk factors of smoking among primary school students

Background: Tobacco use has become a rapidly growing problem worldwide as well as in many developing countries. Of serious concern, is the increasing trend in smoking prevalence amongst school aged children and the likelihood that many of them who begin to smoke at an early age, will continue to do so throughout adulthood. Aim: To examine the impact of different risk factors in the initiation and continuation of smoking among primary school students in Mosul city. Materials and Methods: A case-control study design was adopted, where 200 smoker pupils were allocated as cases and another 200 non-smoker pupils were consider as controls. Study period was from the 1st of September to the 1st December 2011. Data collection tool was a questionnaires used to measure current cigarette use, age of initiation of cigarette smoking, current use of other tobacco products, exposure to second hand smoking, tobacco use by family members; in addition a question about student's knowledge acquired from school educational curriculum regarding harmful effect of smoking were present. Odds ratio, Chi square test, t-test and 95% confidence interval were used as statistical analyzing tools. Results: Important risk factors have been evaluated in this study to play a role in development of smoking among primary school students: type a personality, low and middle educational level of father and social class IIIa with variable level of significance. Regarding family members and peer smoking status; smoking father, mother, siblings, grandfather and peer whether in or out of the school appeared to have high influence on students to smoke. Moreover, good family consistency, high school performance, high standard of student's knowledge on the effects of smoking, using car to travel to/from school emerge as protective side. Conclusion: Model role of family member in addition to peer pressure manifested its influence clearly in the primary school students to smoke.