National studies need to be conducted to examine how widespread the problem identified is and tobacco control initiatives and smoking cessation treatment services need to consider urgently how to overcome the barrier that a desire on the part of young people to continue cannabis smoking poses to achieving a reduction in tobacco use.

Smoking among young people has become increasingly gendered. In several countries, smoking among adolescent girls is now higher than among adolescent boys. However, we have only a limited understanding of the reasons behind these gender patterns. This paper reports the findings from a qualitative study which used single-sex focus groups to explore the gendered nature of the meaning and function of smoking among Scottish 15- to 16-year old smokers. The study found that young people were ambivalent about their smoking but that this was somewhat different for boys and girls. These differences related to their social worlds, pattern of social relationships, interests, activities and concerns, the meanings they attached to smoking and the role smoking played in dealing with the everyday experience of being a boy or girl in their mid-teens. For example, boys were concerned about the impact of smoking on their fitness and sport, whereas girls were more concerned about the negative aesthetic effects such as their clothes and bodies smelling of smoke. Of particular importance was how smoking related in different ways to the gendered 'identity work' that adolescents had to undertake to achieve a socially and culturally acceptable image. The implications for programmes aimed at reducing smoking among young people, particularly the need for more gender-sensitive approaches, are discussed.

Aim: To establish the acceptability of telemetric monitoring of blood pressure to patients and clinicians. Background: Telemetric monitoring of blood pressure (BP) may allow clinicians and patients, in partnership, to more quickly control high BP through medication and lifestyle alterations. However, it is not clear if patients and clinicians would find such a system acceptable. Methods: Questionnaire study followed by focus groups of patients with high BP, and clinicians involved in managing BP. Findings: We received responses from 25 (50%) practice nurses, 76 (50%) general practitioners and 126 (62%) patients. We ran three focus groups of patients and clinicians. Participants were supportive of the technology, willing to try it, thought it would encourage adherence to medication and lifestyle and felt it would diagnose problems sooner than current methods. However, both groups thought the technology would be more useful for new patients or those whose BP was uncontrolled. They were concerned that individual high readings might provoke anxiety and thought patients would need reassurances about this. Clinicians were concerned about workload and the responsibility to act immediately when faced with a continuous stream of readings, regardless of how inconvenient this may be. Conclusion: Participants, in general, welcomed this technology and thought it would aid adherence to medication and lifestyle advice, but felt it was most suitable to those with newly diagnosed or uncontrolled hypertension. Patients will need to be educated and reassured about the nature of occasional high readings and the need to consider average BP.

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