[Opinion of heads of schools about the impact of school setting factors on the attitude of children and youngsters regarding smoking].
OBJECTIVE
Knowing the influence of school environment on children and teenagers' attitudes about tobacco consumption.


METHODS
A survey was carried on 3.050 Spanish school headmasters (16% of the total in Spain), who were asked about the main variables related to the school environment able to influence the attitude of children and teenagers towards tobacco, such as the fulfilment of the official anti-tobacco legislation at educational centres, the education for nicotine poisoning prevention, or the teachers attitudes about tobacco, among others. Multiple regressions were made so as to value the variables that most influence the pupils' tasting tobacco and becoming usual smokers.


RESULTS
In the opinion of the headmasters the variables that individually most influence the percentage of pupils that have tasted tobacco are the percentage of smoker teachers (beta 0.21) and the percentage of teachers who smoke in the presence of pupils (beta 0.091), as on the percentage of students usual smokers (beta 0.21 and 0.19 respectively). All the variables from school environment analysed jointly, explain some percentages of variance of the 9.65% and 10.7% of the estimated percentages of pupils who have tasted tobacco and pupils that are usual smokers, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
The efforts most be doubled, in order to reach the real fulfilment of the official anti-tobacco legislation in all educational centres and the pupils receive teachings for the prevention of tabaquisme in the context of Health Education, since these measures may make the schools play a more determinant role in the prevention of the nicotinism.
Hernández-Mezquita
M A
MA
Unidad de Medicina Familiar y Comunitaria de Salamanca.
Barrueco
M
M
Jiménez
C A
CA
Vega
M T
MT
Garridod
E
E
D000293:Adolescent; D001290:Attitude; D002648:Child; D005178:Faculty; D006801:Humans; D012574:Schools; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology*; D013030:Spain; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires