Tobacco consumption of school pupils and students between 8 and 22 years of age in Abidjan, 2002

Background To update full time educated youth data on smoking prevalence related to gender and to assess perception and behaviour related to smoking, we have led a self-administrated question-study from January to June 2002 in Abidjan with students from 8 to 22 years old. Methods Our population was divided in 3 groups: T1 (8-12 years), T2 (13-17 years) and T3 (18-22 years). The size of each group has been determined using the smoking estimated rate in each of them. Results 2742 students had returned a well-full questionnaire, with the following rates, expressed by mean and standard deviation in %: a total smoking rate at 7.9 +/- 0.5, with statistic difference between boys and girls (11 0,8 versus 3,7 0,5; p<0.001). This rate increased with age: 3.7 +/- 0.8 in T1; 12.9 +/- 1.0 in T2 and 17.1 +/- 1.1% in T3. Globally, the rate was 0.7 +/- 0.2 for regular smokers (greater than or equal to1 cigarette/day) (10% of C.D.T.) and 1.7 +/- 0.2% for ex-smokers. 99.2% of current smokers used cigarettes only. On average, the tobacco consumption was 3.4 cigarettes/day. In non-smokers group, 88% had respiratory symptoms linked to smoke exposure, with 17% of major dyspnea. Non smokers reported public places as the most frequent (66.7 +/- 1.3%) and the highest long time exposure (44.3 +/- 1.9%) places to second hand smoke. Discussion A similar smoking prevalence between asthmatics and non-asthmatics subjects, and between sporty type and non sporty type subjects, suggested that students had superficial knowledge or under assessment on smoking detrimental effect. However, their perception of smoking health hazard was sufficient to give 95 +/- 1% favourable opinions on necessary smoking place regulations and 85 +/- 1% favourable opinions on tobacco product advertising ban. Conclusion The epidemiological and behaviour information given by this study might contribute to the development of a national youth tobacco control program, provided a complementary national survey would be led including non educated youth.