बाल रोग और चिकित्सा विज्ञान
खुला एक्सेस

अमूर्त

Current Tobacco Smoking Status and Factors for Initiation of Smoking among Ever-Smoker Male Adolescents in Dhaka City

Farzana Nusrat*, Fariha Haseen, Syed Shariful Islam

Background: Tobacco is one of the major preventable leading causes of death in the world. In Bangladesh, about 56.4 percent of smokers started smoking at age of 12-13 years.

Objectives: This study was aimed to find out the status of tobacco smoking by college-going male adolescent ever-smokers with initiating factors.

Method: A larger study was conducted among college-going male students from Dhaka city. This part of the study included 91 ever-smokers of 15-19 years old. This descriptive analysis shows a pattern of tobacco smoking among 91 ever-smoker male adolescents. Results were expressed by frequency, percentage and continuous variables were expressed in mean, SD. We collected data by a self-administered Bangla questionnaire which included questions of tobacco smoking behavior. Data was collected by face to face interview from September 2018 to October 2018.

Result: This study revealed that about 68.7 percent ever smokers were 18 to 19 years old. Sixty-nine smokers currently smoked and 44 percent of smokers initiated smoking at or below the age of 16. Among 91 eversmokers, 49.4 percent initiated smoking due to peer pressure and 34.9 percent were due to depression. Forty smokers (58 percent) currently smoked in a public place and most of them smoked with their friends. Among 37 current smokers 67.6 percent smokers smoked 1 to 6 cigarettes daily. Eighty seven percent of the eversmokers collected tobacco products from stores.

Conclusion: Bangladesh is home to 36 million adolescents, making up 22 percent of the population. So this is the time to be concerned about our adolescent group and try to modify their risky behavior such as tobacco smoking to prevent non-communicable diseases.