Journal of Preventive Medicine

Introduction: Smoking is one of the global health challenges and a risk factor for death in developed and developing countries.The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of smoking and factors affecting attitude and behavior towards smoking among high school students in Bandar Abbas, Iran.

Methods: A descriptive-analytical design (cross-sectional study) was conducted to investigate 2029 high school students who were selected through a multi-stage cluster sampling method. Data were collected using the researcher made questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive and analytical statistics such as frequency, percentage, Chi-square and t-test.

Results: The mean age of students was 16±1.34years. In total, 23.2% of the subjects reported that they had never smoked in their lifetime and 8.56% of them reported smoking in the past 30 days as regular smokers. The multivariate analysis by logistic regression shows that smoking by mother (OR= 20.3 and 28.8 for male and female student respectfully), father (OR= 2.52 and 2.43 for male and female student respectively), a close friend of smoker (OR= 4.3 and 7.0 for male and female student respectively) and a smoker at home (OR= 3.5 and 2.2 for male and female student respectively) are associated with smoking. Smoking in adolescents was not significantly associated with factors such as father’s occupation, mother’s occupation, father’s education, mother’s education, family size and family economic status.

Conclusion: Although, smoking among high school students in Bandar Abbas, compared with other researches inside and outside the country remains a relatively mild, however, issues such as having more friends, feeling the charm, smoking mother and father, a friend of smoker and the smoker in the home are main significant factors related to smoking. Therefore, effective smoking prevention programs should focus on strengthening life skills, internal communication, and external factors such as family members, teachers, and school counselors.