Increasing the Trend of Smoking in Iranian Adolescents

Cigarette smoking continues to be a major public health problem that specifically affects the adolescent population. The prevalence of cigarette smoking among Iranian adolescents has been reported between 2.5 to 17.0% (1). Such a broad range is primarily due to the variety of the definition of “being a smoker”, the age difference of the samples under study and the location where such studies have been undertaken. The key point is that by reviewing the studies in Iranian adolescents, even with considering the differences in definition of cigarette smoker and studied samples, it can be easily observed increasing trend in smoking prevalence in Iranian adolescents. Table 1 shows cigarette smoking trend among Iranian adolescents since 2002 up to now. Statistics for smoking prevalence derived from these were based on the same definition of cigarette smoker (Regular smoker). Regular smoker defined as adolescent who smoked 100 cigarettes or more in lifetime/or smoked at least once per week (2).