Attitude of High School Students of Tehran towards Tobacco Use

Cigarette smoking is the first preventable death in the world. Presence of a positive attitude towards tobacco use in young adults is one of the effective factors in starting smokingSince it seems that the age of starting smoking has decreased in our society, it is important to recognize the attitudes towards cigarette smoking in this period of life. Therefore, this research was conducted according to WHO questionnaire and Global Youth Tobacco Survey Project (GYTS) and 1119 high school students were chosen randomly from different educational districts of Tehran in the year 2003 and were questioned in this regard. According to the results of this study 28.2% of students (25.2% female and 30.8% male) smoked occasionally and 4.4% of them (1.5% female and 6.06% male) smoked daily.44.9% of the students believe that smoker students have less friends (than others) and 41.1% believe that smoker students are less comfortable in the parties.77.7% of the students believe that there is no difference in attractiveness of smoker and non smoker students.41.1% of the students consider the smoker boy as a “looser” and 38% of them consider the smoker girl as “stupid”. 80.4% of students assume that quitting smoking is very easy. Although the results of this study show that the attitudes of students towards smoking are not positive but this attitude has not prevented them from smoking and more serious action must be taken. Also, there is no significant difference between the attitudes of smoker and non smoker students.