It is the youngest students, between 12 and 13 years old, who most report having started smoking at school, with the greatest tendency among girls, reveals a study on smoking habits in the school environment, jointly developed by the Coimbra Delegation of Fundação Portuguesa do Lung (FPP) and by the Laboratory of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics (LBIM) of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Coimbra (FMUC).
The study, which involved 3.289 students (1584 males and 1705 females) from the 7th to the 12th grade, from 20 schools in the municipality of Coimbra, showed, however, that the vast majority (79%) of students do not smoke. Of the 21% smokers, about half (10,2%) do so regularly, consuming an average of half a pack of cigarettes per day.
All the results of this survey approved by the Ministry of Education and Science, which also assessed students' knowledge of the relationship between lung diseases and tobacco, will be presented today, November 17, at 17:30 pm, at the FPP Coimbra delegation , within the scope of the III Lung Week.
For João Rui de Almeida, president of the Coimbra Delegation of the FPP, these results “alert to the need to invest in awareness campaigns in schools about the harmful effects of tobacco, and also to sensitize parents to this reality, given that most of students who smoke (51,9%) say that their parents smoke at home. This study also reveals that it is in schools that younger students (12-13 years old) start to smoke».
For his part, Francisco Caramelo, coordinator of the LBIM team that carried out the data analysis, emphasizes the fact that «we can see in these students a pattern of growth in the number of smokers with age. This means that there is a cumulative effect, that is, it is difficult for those who start to smoke stop doing so, and the probability of smoking increases about 1,5 times per year».
It was also found that the majority of smokers (51,9%) reported having family members at home who smoke. This percentage drops to 40,6% in the case of non-smokers, noting that there is a high prevalence of passive smokers.
Although the majority of students (95,8%) claim to be aware of the harm of tobacco, only 57,9% of smokers revealed that they would like to stop smoking.
Author: Cristina Pinto (Press Office – University of Coimbra)
Science in the Regional Press – Ciência Viva
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