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clinmed/2000050006v1 (May 26, 2000)
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Analysis of Factors Influencing An Adolescent's
Intention To Be A Non-smoker
Urmi Sen, and Arindam Basu
Objective—To analyze the determinants of the adolescents' intention to be non-smokers.
Design — Cross sectional, school based survey of students in the ninth and eleventh grades.
Responses were analyzed using a binary logistic regression model.
Participants— High School students in Calcutta aged 14 to 18 years.
Main Outcome Measure — Intention of the subjects to remain lifetime non-smokers.
Results— A total of 1973 students (males-73.79% and females-26.21%) were interviewed. Of
them, 1950 students (98.8 percent) responded to the question whether they were determined
never to smoke in their lifetime (male -73.5%, female - 26.5%). In a multivariate analysis,
intention to remain a non-smoker had statistically significant associations with studying in
private schools, father being a non-smoker, high degree of perceived danger of smoking,
unfavorable impression of a regular smoker and good academic performance. Of all the
significant determinants, perceived danger related to smoking had the strongest association and
showed a dose response relationship to the intention to remain non-smoker.
Conclusions—This study suggests that social factors and belief about adverse consequences of
smoking exert significant influence on an adolescent’s decision to remain non-smoker. For early
prevention of smoking among the youth, the dangers to health on smoking need to be emphasized.
