Teenagers are much more likely to smoke and be dependent on nicotine if a parent and grandparent is dependent on nicotine, a recent study has revealed.
The cross-sectional study published in journal of Integrative Medicine and Public Health, a publication of Department of Community Medicine, Government Medical College, Srinagar, a copy of which lies with news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) has revealed that teenager whose parents smoke are five times more likely to become smokers and the teenagers whose grandparents smoke are two times more likely to become smokers.
As per the study, 430 patients which included 215 tobacco users and 215 non-tobacco users were included in the study and they were aged between 15 and 25 years and were age and gender matched in the ratio of 1:1.
A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect information regarding their self-tobacco use, form of use, parental and grandparental tobacco use.
Among the 215 study participants in each group, the distributions of male and female participants were 212 (98.6%) and three (1.4%), respectively, the study participants with paternal tobacco habit were 5.28 times more likely to adopt the tobacco habit compared to the study participants without paternal tobacco use and study participants with paternal grandfather tobacco use were 1.57 times more likely to develop the tobacco habit than the study participants without paternal grandfather tobacco use and both the association was found to be statistically highly, it reads.
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It said that participants who had higher maternal strictness were 0.077 less likely to develop the tobacco habit compared to the study participants with lower maternal strictness which was found to be statistically significant. Participants with higher paternal warmth were 0.097 times less likely to adopt the tobacco habit compared to study participants with lower paternal warmth which was found to be statistically significant.
For an effective tobacco control program among tobacco users, counseling of participants’ father and mother should be done simultaneously.
It said anti-tobacco activities should emphasize and make parents realize the importance the family plays in the development of tobacco behavior—(KNO)
