Risk Factors for Smoking Behaviors Among Adolescents

Abstract

Many students in Korea begin to use tobacco and develop a regular smoking habit before they reach adulthood. Yet, little is known about various signs contributing to the transition of the student smoking behaviors. This study used a national sample to explore and compare risk factors for smoking behaviors. Three types of smoking behaviors were defined: never smoking (in their lifetime), history of experimental smoking (ever tried but not within the last 30 days), and current smoking (at least 1 day during the last 30 days). Risk factors for experimentally starting and not continuing smoking were identified as gender, perceived health status, and friend-related stress. School type, academic performance, alcohol use, perception of harm of smoking, and close friends' smoking increased the risk of progressing from never smoking to the history of experimental smoking and current smoking. Our findings may be valuable in school health care settings in planning cessation programs.

Cigarette smoking among 17–18 year old adolescents – Prevalence and association with sociodemographic, familial, sport, and scholastic factors

“…These results have been expected because nearly all studies performed to date had reported a negative association between educational achievement and smoking [4,22,23]. In our study, this phenomenon has been more obvious among girls than among boys, likely due to better scholastic achievements among girls.…”

Factors affecting cigarette smoking among adolescents in South Korea, Vietnam, and Thailand

“…Though these nations continue to industrialize, there is a strong need for economic investment. As such, these three countries have government‐owned tobacco companies, and emphasize the economic development that results from the taxes collected from consumption of cigarettes (Chung & Joung, ; MacKenzie, Ross, & Lee, ; WHO, ). These countries encounter dual problems regarding the government‐run cigarette industry.…”

“…Adolescence is a developmental stage consisting of the building social relationships, increased physical growth, and maturation of values. Unfortunately, smoking during this phase ​​has major implications for health and well‐being during the first half of life, and is highly correlated with the smoking behaviors of friends and family members (Chung & Joung, ). However, little attention has been paid to determine whether, overall or individually, personal characteristics, family, friends, schools, and/or public environments affect adolescent smoking, and if so, the extent of these effects, especially Asian adolescents.…”

Smoking: Risk Factors and Interventions for Adolescents

“…Due to this, it is important as health care providers to identify these factors as well as other risk factors and target them in a fashion that will help reduce the number of new cases as well as increase the cessation rates. Practitioners, like myself, can extract valuable information regarding the risk factors for teenage smoking initiation from the article written by Chung and Joung (2013) and integrate that information into their current practice. For instance, one of the risk factors includes the high school setting.…”