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.
Acknowledgements
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
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