title: Correlates of susceptibility to smoking among secondary school students in Kota Tinggi district, Johor, Malaysia.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Smoking among adolescents has been linked to a variety of adverse and long term health consequences. "Susceptibility to smoking" or the lack of cognitive commitment to abstain from smoking is an important predictor of adolescent smoking. In 2008, we conducted a study to determine the psycho-sociological factors associated with susceptibility to smoking among secondary school students in the district of Kota Tinggi, Johor.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two thousand seven hundred students were randomly selected by proportional stratified sampling. Analyses on 1,736 non-smoking students revealed that prevalence of adolescents susceptible to smoking was 16.3%.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Male gender (aOR=2.05, 95%CI= 1.23-3.39), poor academic achievement (aOR 1.60, 95%CI 1.05-2.44), ever-smoker (aOR 2.17, 95%CI 1.37-3.44) and having a smoking friend (aOR 1.76, 95%CI 1.10-2.83) were associated with susceptibility to smoking, while having the perception that smoking prohibition in school was strictly enforced (aOR 0.55, 95%CI 0.32-0.94), and had never seen friends smoking in a school compound (aOR 0.59, 95%CI 0.37-0.96) were considered protective factors
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results indicate that follow-up programmes need to capitalise on the modifiable factors related to susceptibility to smoking by getting all stakeholders to be actively involved to stamp out smoking initiation among adolescents.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Public Health, Ministry of Health, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia E-mail : keelimkota@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Lim Kuang
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Hock
authors.forename: Sumarni Mohd
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Ghazali
authors.forename: Kee Chee
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Cheong
authors.forename: Lim Kuang
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Kuay
authors.forename: Lim Hui
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Chan Ying
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Ying
authors.forename: Tay Chien
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Huey
authors.forename: Lai Wai
authors.initials: LW
authors.lastname: Yee
authors.forename: Ong Shiau
authors.initials: OS
authors.lastname: Ying
authors.forename: Yeo Lay
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Yen
authors.forename: Norhamimah
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Abdullah
authors.forename: Seet
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wymen
authors.forename: Normala
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ibrahim
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008296:Malaysia / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D011379:Prognosis; D012307:Risk Factors; D012574:Schools; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014029:Tobacco Use Disorder / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*