Seçilmiş Bir Grup Ergen Arasında Nargile Kullanım Durumunun Saptanması ve Nargile İle İlgili Algının Değerlendirilmesi

Abstract

Hookah is a type of instrument used for smoking tobacco which has especially become common among adolescents and young adults; and it constitutes an important public health issue. We believe that the increasing trend in hookah smoking is related to lack of awareness on health risks of hookah, the misconception that it has a lower addiction potential and that it is regarded more socially acceptable. For this reason, our aim in this study is to determine the factors related to hookah smoking among adolescents, awareness levels about its health effects, and to investigate the factors affecting the perception of hookah addiction, its social acceptance and the overall perception of hookah. This study includes 400 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 years who applied to the Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics at Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine between October 1, 2019 and April 30, 2020 and agreed to participate in the study. The participants were given a survey form under supervision, which included sections of socio-demographic characteristics, past medical history, healthy lifestyle behaviors, use of tobacco in their family and close circle, their tobacco use, their knowledge on hookah and perception of hookah. It was found that while 14.5% of teenagers have smoked hookah at least once in their life, the current hookah smoking frequency was 6.8%. The factors that increase this frequency were: increasing age (p<0,001), smoking cigarettes (p<0,001), father’s smoking cigarettes (p<0,001) and hookah (p=0,024), hookah smoking by teachers (p=0,004), cigarette and hookah smoking by friends (p<0,001). Younger age (p=0,005), smoking cigarettes (p<0,001), having never used hookah before (p<0,001) increases the perception of hookah addiction. Besides, having never used cigarettes and hookah (p<0,001), being younger (p<0,001), believing to have a healthy diet (p=0,012), father’s smoking habit (p=0,005), teacher’s hookah smoking (p=0,016), friends’ smoking cigarette and hookah (p<0,001) and other tobacco products (p=0,035) are the factors that increase the social acceptance of hookah among adolescents. Among those who do not believe that hookah is addictive, regarding hookah as socially acceptable is found to have a significantly high frequency (p<0,001). It is found that those who regard hookah smoking as socially unacceptable are more aware about the fact that hookah contains carcinogens (p=0,008). Concerning the effects of the factors related to the perception of hookah’s social acceptance, each unit of increase in the age corresponded to 1.68 unit of increase in seeing hookah smoking as socially acceptable; furthermore, if they know their teacher smokes, it increases hookah’s social acceptance by 2.05 times, and if the teenager has smoked hookah once in their life, it increases their perception of social acceptance by 10.14 times. Our study contributes to the literature by demonstrating that the lack of knowledge about the negative health effects and addictive characteristics of hookah increases its social acceptance among adolescents. In addition, although family members and friends have significant effects on teenagers’ perception of hookah and frequency of smoking, with this study, it has been demonstrated for the first time that teachers are more influential on adolescents in this issue.