Predicting the stages of smoking acquisition in the male students of Shiraz's high schools, 2003

A staged model of smoking adoption has been widely applied in studies of adolescent smoking. This paper examined the effects of socioenvironmental and personal factors on three stages of the smoking continuum among a sample of 10th-grade male students, ages 14-19 years, at 20 high schools in Shiraz city. This paper is the first step of a longitudinal study related to adolescents smoking and predictors of transition in the stages. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 1,132 10th-grade students from a possible population of 14,000 students. Multivariate discriminant function analysis was used to analyze the data. Overall 19.4% of students had smoked; 80.6%, 16.9%, and 2.5% had never smoked, had experimented, and had regularly smoked, respectively. The discriminant function analysis indicated that attitude toward smoking, use of alcohol, use of illicit drugs, smoking behavior of best friends, and self-esteem were related to more intense smoking behaviors. Finally, these variables permitted the correct classification of 70.3% of students into the stages of smoking acquisition. This finding has important public health significance, but further research is required to determine if the association is causal.