Abstract

To determine the smoking prevalence among students and the effects of social learning on smoking behaviour. A cross-sectional study was performed among students in Inönü High School and Balçova Trade HighSchool in Izmir. The minimum sample size was 410 students with 15% of a possible smoking prevalence and 3% of deviation at 95% confidence interval. A cluster sampling selection (571) was performed in Inönü while all students (273) in Balçova included in the study. The participation rates were 91.4% and 93.8%, respectively. Data were obtained by the self-administered questionnaire. The prevalence of current smokers was 14.6% among students in Inönü and 18.6% in Balçova. The most important factor of smoking initiation was stress. The other smokers in the home, friends’ smoking, having knowledges about smoking habits ofteachers and popular stars and alcohol consumption were significantly associated with increasing rate of smoking prevalence(p=0.000). The smoking prevalence of the students showed a positive association with age and mother’s occupation(p=0.005,p=0.008). It was also determined according to logistic regression analysis that all factors except age increased significantly smoking prevalence. The smoking prevalence was high among students in Izmir. It was observed that the social learning factors had an important influence on smoking. It is needed to decreasing smoking prevalence among high school students that antismoking education should be reevaluated, that antismoking campaign should be administered in schools and community, that parents, teachers and school managers should be integrated into preventive programmes and prevention efforts must start early stage.