Increasing the Trend of Smoking in Iranian Adolescents.

Dear Editor-in-Chief

Cigarette smoking continues to be a major public health problem that specifically affects the adolescent population. The prevalence of cigarette smoking among Iranian adolescents has been reported between 2.5 to 17.0% (1). Such a broad range is primarily due to the variety of the definition of “being a smoker”, the age difference of the samples under study and the location where such studies have been undertaken.

The key point is that by reviewing the studies in Iranian adolescents, even with considering the differences in definition of cigarette smoker and studied samples, it can be easily observed increasing trend in smoking prevalence in Iranian adolescents. Table 1 shows cigarette smoking trend among Iranian adolescents since 2002 up to now. Statistics for smoking prevalence derived from these were based on the same definition of cigarette smoker (Regular smoker). Regular smoker defined as adolescent who smoked 100 cigarettes or more in lifetime/or smoked at least once per week (2).

Table 1:

Trend of prevalence (%) of regular smoking among Iranian high school students

City	year	Sample size	Boys	Girls	Total	Reference
Kerman	2002	860	2.3	0.4	1.2	(6)
Shiraz	2002	1132	2.5	–	–	(7)
Zahedan	2003	475	2.3	0.4	1.3	(8)
Tehran	2003	1095	6.0	1.6	4.4	(9)
Kermanshah	2004	3150	–	1.1	–	(10)
Tabriz	2004	1785	4.4	–	–	(4)
Rasht	2004	1400	6.8	–	–	(11)
Birjand	2005	1233	3.9	–	–	(12)
Tehran	2006	2295	3.9	3.6	3.8	(13)
Jahrom	2007	1145	–	–	6.5	(14)
Tehran	2010	4591	12.1	5.3	8.4	(15)
Zanjan	2011	1035	10.8	–	–	(1)
Tabriz	2011	5197	13.8	0.9	6.7	(5)

Furthermore three studies were showed that the rate of becoming smoker is high among Iranian adolescents. In a study in Shiraz, Ayatollahi et al. (3) showed that during 8 months 11.4% and 2.2% of never smoked students were transited to experimenter and regular smoking stage, respectively and 14.5% of students in experimenter stage were transited to regular smoking stage. During one year 14.34% and 2.8% of never smoked students were transited to experimenter and regular smoking stage, respectively and 16.5% of students in experimenter stage were transited to regular smoking stage(4). Recently during a year, 10.1% and 1.7% of the never smokers became experimenters and regular smokers, respectively, whereas 17.0% of the experimenters became regular smokers (5).

Based on above results we can conclude that: 1) The cigarette smoking prevalence in boys is much more than in girls, 2) There is an increasing trend in smoking prevalence in Iranian adolescents and 3) The rate of becoming smoker is high among Iranian adolescents. So, preventive measures in adolescence and pre-adolescence period are necessary.