Smoking among high school students of an area with medium socioeconomic status.

OBJECTIVE To observe the smoking patterns among high school students in Sarakhs County, Iran. METHODS This is a cross sectional school based survey. The study population was 943 high school students grade 9-12, from Sarakhs County in study year 2010-2011. Study tool was a self-administrated questionnaire. RESULTS From 943 participating students, 181(19.2%) had history of smoking. The mean age of smokers was 16.59 +/- 1.1, and the mean age of initiating smoking was 14.35 +/- 2.1 years. Of the smokers, 121 (66.9%) were male and 124 (68.7%) students were aware of smoking hazards. Public broadcasting, family, and newspapers were the most common sources of students' knowledge about smoking. Recreation and entertainment, peer group impact, and curiosity were the most frequent predisposing factors for smoking from students' perspectives. The relationship between smoking and school type, field of study, school failing, and having a smoker father, brother or friend was significant (p < 0.001). The concomitant use of illegal drugs was more common between smoker students; marijuana 4.9, alcohol 1.2, Psychoactive Pills 2.5 and Betel Nut (Nas) 3.4 times were more common. CONCLUSION This study showed that smoking prevalence among high school students of an area with average socioeconomic status (Sarakhs County) is similar to that reported by most of the other Iranian studies, and compared to a few studies it was even lower. Our results are supportive for the programmes that aim to change high risk behaviours simultaneously.