Elsevier

Preventive Medicine

Volume 30, Issue 6, June 2000, Pages 463-477
Preventive Medicine

Regular Article
Models of the Relationship of Stress, Depression, and Other Psychosocial Factors to Smoking Behavior: A Comparison of a Cohort of Students in Grades 6 and 8,☆☆

https://doi.org/10.1006/pmed.2000.0671Get rights and content

Abstract

Background. Six specific hypotheses regarding putative mechanisms by which stressful life events might lead to initiation of smoking among adolescents were proposed and tested on a Grade 6 cohort of students in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. In addition, the data were used to determine the set of risk factors for initiation of smoking most pertinent to the experience of the cohort.

Methods. The same relationships were examined for the 1,543 students when they were in Grade 8 and compared to the earlier Grade 6 results. The hypotheses include the effects of personal resources (coping, self-esteem, social support, and mastery), social conformity, rebelliousness, attitudes, smoking environment factors, and gender differences.

Results. The hypotheses were not unequivocally supported, except for the hypotheses about attitudes and smoking environment as well as gender effects. Males and females differ with regard to the variables and interrelationships in both years and in the final models developed. In Grade 6, there are more smoking environment items for males than for females. By Grade 8, male smoking is influenced by mastery, social conformity, and rebelliousness, while for females environmental smoking and rebelliousness are important.

Conclusion. Male and female students differ in how stress, depression, and smoking are related in the presence of psychosocial factors.

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    The authors thank Jo-Anne Aubut for her help in preparing this paper, in particular, with the references and other refinements to the text.

    ☆☆

    This research was funded by the National Cancer Institute of Canada, Grant 008080, awarded to Dr. J. Koval, and by the National Health Research and Development Program (Canada), Grant 6606-4478-62, awarded to Dr. L. Pederson and Dr. J. Koval.

    2

    To whom correspondence and reprint requests should be addressed. Fax: (519) 661-3766. E-mail: [email protected].

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