Status of current tobacco use and its influencing factors among adolescents in Hubei province

Objective To understand the status of tobacco use and its influencing factors among teenagers in Hubei province,and to provide scientific evidence for developing tobacco control strategies.Methods Multistage stratified clustering random sampling was used to select a total of 5 438 teenagers from 36 schools in Hubei province to have a self-administrated questionnaires survey.Results The rate of current tobacco use among adolescents in Hubei province was 5.66%.The prevalence rate of current tobacco use for boys(8.31%) was higher than that of girls(2.48%),the rate of rural(6.27%) were higher than that of urban areas (4.84%),the rate was increased with the growth of grade and disposable pocket money (P<0.01).About 89.40% of the adolescents firstly tried to smoke before 14 years old.71.71% of the current youth smokers wanted to quit smoking,91.79% of them had never received any assistances or suggestions from the professional.Logistic regression analysis showed that gender,age,pocket money of every week,parental smoking,peer smoking,the knowledge of difficulties for smoke-quitting and second-hand-smoke were influencing factors of current tobacco use among adolescents(P<0.01);Without smoking parents or friends,thinking it easy to quit smoke and knowing the harm of second-hand-smoke were the protective factors of adolescents' tobacco use behavior (OR =1.763,10.521,2.047,2.243).Conclusion The behavior of tobacco use is quite common among teenagers in Hubei province.Pupils and junior school students are the key population for health education on controlling tobacco,and school is a good place to conduct tobacco education.