Predictability of smoking onset among Romanian adolescents

Lucia Maria Lotrean; Ilse Mesters; Carmen Ionut; Hein de Vries

doi:10.2478/sjph-2014-0009

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Predictability of smoking onset among Romanian adolescents

Slovenian Journal of Public Health

Volume 53 (2014): Issue 1 (March 2014)

By: Lucia Maria Lotrean, Ilse Mesters, Carmen Ionut and Hein de Vries

Open Access

|Dec 2013

Abstract

Objectives: Research identifying reliable and country-specific predictors of smoking is needed in order to develop effective adolescent smoking prevention programmes. The objective of this study was to assess the cognitive and socio-demographic factors associated with smoking onset among Romanian teenagers, using both cross-sectional and longitudinal data.

Methods: The data were obtained from a two-wave, one-year longitudinal study carried out among 316 senior high school non-smokers from Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Questionnaires assessed smoking behaviour, attitudes, social influence, self-efficacy and intention regarding smoking (motivational variables) as well as different sociodemographic features.

Results: The cross-sectional analyses showed that socio-demographics and motivational variables were strongly associated with smoking behaviour; the explained variance was 76%. The longitudinal analyses revealed that four variables explained 33% of the variance in change of status from non-smoking to regular smoking over a period of one year. Regular smoking onset after one year was predicted by baseline low self-efficacy in refraining from smoking in different situations, having more smoking friends and playing truant from school. Having a brother was a protective factor.

Conclusion: The results suggest that smoking prevention programmes in Romania should strengthen self-efficacy beliefs and resistance against peer modelling and help Romanian young people to develop skills and action plans to cope with pressure to smoke and challenging situations.

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Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/sjph-2014-0009 | Journal eISSN: 1854-2476 | Journal ISSN: 0351-0026

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Language: English, Slovenian

Page range: 78 - 88

Published on: Dec 13, 2013

Published by: National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Keywords:

smoking predictors,

Romanian adolescents,

smoking prevention

Related subjects:

Medicine,

Clinical medicine,

Hygiene and environmental medicine

© 2013 Lucia Maria Lotrean, Ilse Mesters, Carmen Ionut, Hein de Vries, published by National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

Volume 53 (2014): Issue 1 (March 2014)