Factors associated with current tobacco use among adolescents and young students

Objectives

To determine the prevalence of current tobacco use and its association with sociodemographic factors and risk behaviors among adolescents and young students, according to gender.

Methods

The sample consisted of students from the state public school network aged between 12 and 24 years, who answered the Brazilian version of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey questionnaire. The data were analyzed in SPSS software (v. 20.0), using Poisson regression to evaluate the prevalence ratio (PR) of the independent variables in relation to the outcome. p < 0.05 was established as the significance level.

Results

The final analysis consisted of 1275 adolescents, of whom 716 (56.2%) were girls and 559 (43.8%) were boys. The prevalence of current tobacco use was 6.6% among girls and 9.7% among boys. In females, consuming alcohol in the last 30 days (3.91 [1.54–9.94]) and being 14 years old or younger (0.50 [0.26–0.96]) influenced current tobacco use. In the male gender, tobacco use in the last 30 days was influenced by current alcohol consumption (2.92 [1.21–7.08]) and involvement in physical fighting in the last 12 months (2.32 [1.32–4.09]).

Conclusion

Although the prevalence of current tobacco use was low in both genders, the assessed population still presents a risk, since male involvement in physical fighting and current consumption of alcohol in both genders increased the probability of this population becoming regular tobacco users.