Patterns of cigarette smoking among Bristol schoolchildren: implications for educational intervention

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Abstract
A questionnaire on smoking behaviour and related issues was administered to 10 579 11- to 16- year-old children from 10 co-educational secondary schools randomly selected from the Bristol conurbation. The results show that children start experimenting with cigarettes at a very early age and that over half report trying a cigarette before 11 years of age. The most dramatic increase in regular smoking occurs at about age 14 for both boys and girls, although the level of regular smoking reported is consistently higher among girls than boys at ages 13–15 years. By age 16 this sex difference disappears, with 27% of teenagers reporting regular cigarette smoking. The vast majority of regular smoking report some perceived dependence of cigarettes in terms of craving cigarettes at least occasionally (79%) and believing it would be difficult for them to give up smoking (67%). The implications of these results for health education programmes are discussed and a two-tier approach is suggested.

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