Path analysis on influence factors of adolescents in Wuhan city

  Objective   To investigate the moderators and mediators of cigarette use among adolescent smokers.

  Methods   1 168 students were recruited with randomly stratified sampling from general high school and vocational high schools in three urban areas of Wuhan city.1 077 of them completed paper-and-pencil questionnaires.

  Results   10.3 percent of subjects reported smoking in the past 30 days and the average amount in 30 days was 91.3 cigarettes.With path analysis, the results showed that alcohol drinking, social norm of smoking, initial age of smoking and number of smoking friends were directly related with current smoking amounts, other risk factors were the mediators with the current smoking.

  Conclusion   It indicates that the smoking reduction intervention among adolescents should focus on adolescent drinking, peer smoking, social norms of smoking, especially on the boys and those with hyperactivity.