(735) SMOKING HABITS IN ADOLESCENCE: EDUCATING TO PREVENT

摘要

Background: The onset of smoking occurs most often among adolescents in schools, based onsocially enabling representations, but which are predictors of unhealthy lifestyles.Objective: Our aim was to characterise the profile of teenagers attending high school and consumingtobacco and to estimate the impact of the school context variables and lifestyles on adolescentknowledge and tobacco consumption.Materials and method: We conducted a quantitative, descriptive, correlational, analytical and crosssectionalstudy with a sample of 971 adolescents, aged between 14 and 21, attending high school, byimplementing a socio-demographic questionnaire, of their school context and lifestyles; RosenbergSelf-Esteem Scale[1]; Clinical Inventory of Self-concept [2] and Tobacco Consumption Scale [3].Results: The students, aged between 14 and 21, are part of medium-high or high income (56.70%)families. Most attend the 10th year, 38.60%, followed by the 11th year, 31.50%. We found that 62.00%of students have positive feelings (“like”) in relation to school, 32.00% are indifferent and 6.0% showednegative feelings (“do not like”). The vast majority of adolescents (82.60%) spend less than 30minutes travelling to school and only 17.40% take 30 minutes or more on the trip. We found that42.60% of students have had one or more school retentions in their academic career with a higherpercentage in boys than in girls (47.70% versus 37.40%). In our sample (58.70%) of the adolescentsreported that their parents are always available to help them with schoolwork and 23.90% said it oftenhappens. We found that the usual adolescent smokers reported being influenced by another familymember (65.3%), girlfriend/boyfriend (40.8%), and the father (37.0%). As for peer influence we foundthat 68.0% of current smokers and 56.4% of occasional smokers hang out with three or more smokerfriends. Cigarettes are most often supplied at cafes (73.0%), at school (71.1%) and discos/clubs(56.2%). Adolescents who do not smoke have better knowledge about health and tobacco.Conclusion: There are several factors associated with the initiation of tobacco consumption; amongthem we found peer pressure and parental influence; the more smokers surround adolescents, thehigher the probability of taking up smoking. The data points to the need to implement preventiveactions in families and schools, promoting healthier lifestyles and awareness that smoking is acomplex and globalizing phenomenon affecting both the individual health of smokers and publichealth.