A survey on smoking habits and attitudes among adolescents in Greece.

Full Abstract

The objective of the present study was to investigate smoking habits among 699 secondary school students, along with their attitudes toward smoking and their perceptions on the consequences of tobacco use in their health. Our results indicate that Greek adolescents begin to smoke mainly due to curiosity and for stress reasons. Furthermore, having friends who smoke is highly associated with smoking and intention for smoking. Likewise, paternal smoking seems to reinforce students' intention for smoking. On the contrary, parental disapproval of smoking leads to anti-smoking behavior. Adolescents' attitudes toward smoking are also related to a series of similar factors such as parental educational status, parental smoking, and parental disapproval of smoking, friends who smoke, and, finally, adolescents' age, smoking behavior, and intention for smoking. The impact of tobacco use in human health seems to be understood better by older students. All these factors must be taken into account for a successful implementation of an anti-smoking intervention program.

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Author information

Author/s: Piperakis, Stylianos M (SM); Garagouni-Araiou, Fotini (F); Argyracouli, Efthimia (E); Piperakis, Alexander S (AS); Iakovidou-Kritsi, Zafiroula (Z); Triga, Anastassia (A);

Affiliation: Department of Pre-School Education, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece. piper@uth.gr

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: International journal of adolescent medicine and health (Int J Adolesc Med Health), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: -2008 Jan-Mar; vol 20 (issue 1) : pp 63-71

Dates: Created 2008/06/10; Completed 2008/07/29;

PMID: 18540285, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adolescent
Decision Making
Female
Greece - epidemiology
Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
Health Surveys
Humans
Intention

Intention
Male
Parents
Peer Group
Smoking - epidemiology; prevention & control; psychology
Social Environment
Socioeconomic Factors
Students - psychology

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