Assessment of the degree of psychological and physical dependence among teenagers and young adults who smoke

Abstract

Smoking remains one of the serious medical and social problems of today. According to the information center on the problems of alcohol, smoking and drugs in Ukraine, 19 million people aged 15 and older smoke cigarettes (34% of them smoke daily, 6% smoke occasionally), which is the highest indicator among European countries. Smokers develop addiction, which can be physical, psychological and social in nature.

The purpose - to determine the prevalence of bad habits, the degree of physical and psychological dependence among teenagers and young adults.

Materials and methods. To achieve the goal, a survey was conducted using a specially developed questionnaire of 136 teenagers and young adults aged 15 to 24. To assess the degree of physical and psychological dependence, the Fageström test was conducted, the motivation to quit smoking, and the determination of the type of behavior of a smoker.

Results of the study showed that this bad habit occurs both among teenagers and among respondents of young age. Among all respondents, 32.4±1.5% declared themselves to be daily smokers. Among the surveyed smokers, 17.6% of respondents had very weak nicotine addiction, 39.1% had low, 23.5% had moderate, 16.2% had high, and 3.6% had very high. When evaluating the types of smoker’s behavior, it was established that the leading type among respondents is “support” - found in 42.8%; the second place is occupied by the “relaxation” type - in 22.5%; in the third place in terms of frequency of detection is the type “playing with a cigarette”, detected in 20.5%. Respondents have average motivation to quit smoking - 52.1%, high motivation - 36.2% and low motivation - 11.7%.

Conclusions. The conducted research showed that the problem of smoking among teenagers and young adults is relevant. The obtained results of the study indicate the need to develop individual programs for this contingent, regularly conduct motivational talks, as well as the simultaneous use of several different measures to combat tobacco smoking.

The research was carried out in accordance with the principles of the Helsinki Declaration. The study protocol was approved by the Local Ethics Committee of the participating institution. The informed consent of the patient was obtained for conducting the studies.

No conflict of interests was declared by the authors.