• Beauty Rani Suter
• Md. Manjur Hossain
• Aleya Khatun
• Md. Rafiqul Islam Talukder

Smoking is a menace all over the world and Bangladesh is no exception .The knowledge on harmful effects of smoking seems to be widespread but still the prevalence of smoking is known to be increasing in the developing countries. Although smoking is not a good habit and is known to be associated with lung cancer, cardiovascular, respiratory, urogenital, elementary systems and others diseases, a large proportion of our population is addicted to it irrespective of age, caste, creed and status. This cross sectional study was conducted in selective secondary high school in Dhaka City. The main objective of the study was to assess the smoking habit and their influencing factors among the school students. Data were collected from 294 students using self administered questionnaire. Data analysis revealed that out of 294 students 76.9% were boys and the rest were girls (22.7%) with boys and girls ratio was 3.3:1. The mean age of the students was 14.3 years (SD) 1.0 years ranging from 12 years to 18 years. Among the studied students 11.2 were currently smokers. The most frequent type of smoking was cigarette 84.8 followed by bidi. Peer pressure 72.7 appeared to be the main factors for smoking followed by father’s smoking. However, a good number of student’s did not mention any reason. Bi-variate analysis shows that tobacco use was significantly associated with age, sex, class and family size p<0.05 indicating smoking was found to be higher among older students aged 16 years and above and male sex. It was also higher among the student of class X. The finding of this study suggests that as smoking is gradually increasing among the students. As smoking is usually initiated during adolescence, it should be a public health priority to educate this group regarding the hazards of smoking, so that their behavior can be modified. So, strong legislative measure is warranted to prevent the consequence of tobacco use among the younger segment of the population.

Smoking, Students, Cancer, Secondary

"Smoking Habit among Secondary School Students", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.8, Issue 4, page no.197-202, April-2021, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2104126.pdf

"Smoking Habit among Secondary School Students", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.8, Issue 4, page no. pp197-202, April-2021, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2104126.pdf