A Investigation On The Prevalence And Predictors Of Cigarette Smoking In Middle School Students Of Hunan

Objective:1,To learn the prevalence and epidemic characters ofcigarette smoking in middle school students of Hunan.2,To explore predictors of cigarette smoking in middle school students,in order to choose early-warning indexes of cigarette smoking in middleschool students.Methods: 5457 middle schools students and their parents were sampledat random in Hunan Province using two-stage sampling (stratifiedsampling and cluster sampling) to participate in this investigation. Andstratified sampling was separated to three stages, i.e. region (big city,middle city, county, country), classification of school (pivot school,ordinary school), level of school (junior high school, senior high school)in turn. One school was randomly drew out from each cluster. Twoclasses were randomly sampled from each grade of the sampled schools.96 classes in 16 schools were sampled in all. The ten-item diagnosis toolfor IAD, self-rating depression scale, self-rating anxiety scale,interpersonal sensitivity subscale of symptom checklist, familyassessment device, the parenting locus of control scale, and theself-developed questionnaire were employed together to gather the data.95ï¼…confidence interval was used to describe the prevalence of cigarettesmoking. The Chi-square test, partitions of x~2 method, Kruskal-Wallis Htest, Mann-whitney U test, Nemenyi test and logistic regression wereemployed respectively to compare the differences of cigarette smokingprevalence, degree among different subpopulations and to explore thepossible predictors.Results: The prevalence of cigarette smoking of middle school studentsof Hunan was 7.79ï¼…, with 12.75ï¼…of males and 1.83ï¼…of femalesreported smoking behavior. The comparisons of cigarette smokingprevalence among different regions and grades, between the pivot schooland ordinary school, males and females, being or not being a cadre in theclass showed significant difference. No statistical difference was foundbetween single child and non-single child. The comparisons of cigarettesmoking degree among different grades, between males and females andbetween different classifications of school showed significant difference.Region, gender, the attitude on "smoking is the symbol of maturity and cool", the attitude on receiving cigarette handed by classmates andrelatives, peer smoking, drinking, study-weary and fighting were thefactors of cigarette smoking behavior, which can be used as predictors.Their ORswere 1.395,4.468,1.624,7.578,9.405,1.553,1.310 and1.816 respectively. The interaction between the attitude on receivingcigarette handed by classmates and relatives and peer smoking waspredictor on smoking behavior too. Predictors of smoking behavior ofmales was different from those of females.Conclusions: 1,The prevalence of cigarette smoking of middle schoolstudents of Hunan was 7.79%. It was 12.75% and 1.83% respectively ofmales and females reported smoking behavior. Most of the smokerssmoke 1 cigar per week.2,The prevalence rates were different according to region, classificationof school, grade, gender, whether or not being a cadre. The degrees ofsmoking behavior varied by gender, grade and classification of school.3,The characters of individual, knowledge and attitude of smoking,influence from peer and family all affect the cigarette smoking behaviorof middle school students.4,Predictors for cigarette smoking behavior of middle school studentsmostly rooted in one's attitude of smoking, health risk behaviors and his(her) peer's behavior.