| Summary: | Social norms, though an important contributing factor of adolescent smoking
in developed countries, has not been extensively studied in Malaysia. The
objective of this study was to determine the association between certain
perceived norms regarding smoking with smoking status among Malaysian
secondary school students in Kota Tinggi, Johor.
Methods Data were collected from 2311 respondents consisting of 1379 male and 923
female secondary school students in Kota Tinggi district via a self
administered questionnaire. Five perceived norms regarding smoking were
assessed, namely: perceived peer smoking prevalence, perceived parental
reaction towards adolescent smoking, perceived public perception of
adolescent smoking, ever noticed peers smoking inside and outside school
and perceived enforcement of anti-smoking policy in school and their
association with smoking status. Multiple logistic regressions controlling for
gender, peer smoking and family smoking was performed.
Results Of the five perceived norms, four were associated with smoking status,
(perceived peer smoking prevalence (p<0.001value), ever seen friends
smoking inside or outside school (p <0.001), perceived parental reaction
towards adolescent smoking (p<0.001 value) and perceived public
disapproval (p <0.001)). Higher odds for smoking was observed for
adolescents who: perceived a few (aOR 3.22), many (aOR 3.01) or a lot (aOR
3.52) of their peers smoke; had ever observed friends smoking in or outside
of school (aOR 1.79); perceived their parents will react badly to smoking
(aOR 0.84) or perceived the public disapprove of smoking (aOR 0.93).
Conclusions These results suggest that perception of social norms influence adolescents’
decision to smoke, thus measures to curb smoking incidence amongst
adolescents should address these perceptions of social norms.
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