Knowledge and Prevalence of Cigarette Smoking among Public Adolescent Secondary School Students in Ibadan North Local Government Area, Oyo State, Nigeria

Cigarette smoking constitutes a major threat to the health and wellbeing of teenagers. Information relating to the knowledge and smoking behaviour among these adolescent secondary school students in Ibadan North Local Government Area (IBNLGA) has not been systemically documented. This study was therefore conducted to investigate the knowledge, attitude and prevalence of cigarette smoking among public secondary school students in IBNLGA of Oyo State, Nigeria. A crosssectional study design targeted at 349 secondary school students within the ages of 10-19 years selected from seven public secondary schools in IBNLGA using a three-stage sampling method. A pre-tested, semi-structured, interviewer-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics and Chi-square test at p<0.05 level of significance. Mean age of the respondents was 14.7±2.4years. Majority of the respondents were males (61.9%), and Christians (64.5%). 53.9% were within age group 15-19 years. Seventy-three percent of the respondents had good knowledge on the dangers of cigarette smoking. Majority (95.1%) of the respondents considered cigarette smoking dangerous to their health while 67.9% of the respondents correctly mentioned nicotine as a constituent in cigarette. Eighty-five percent of the respondents had positive attitude towards cigarette smoking. Majority of the respondents were influenced by their peers' smoking behaviour (48.7%), while 59.9% by their parents' smoking behaviour. The prevalence of cigarette smoking was 32.1% and 108 (97.3%) of the total population were current smokers. There wasasignificantdifferencebetweenthesex,age,andareaofresidence(p<0.001).Prevalenceofcigarette smoking was relatively high among study participants. This is as a result of peer influence and parental smoking behaviour. Adolescent peer education and school-based enlightenment activities should be implemented in schools.