Perspectives and Reasons for Smoking Tendency in Youth

Recently, smoking, as a critical risk factor, increased the diseases burden, especially chronic and non-communicable conditions, such as cardiovascular, respiratory, cancer, and stroke. Smoking is highly prevalent for various reasons. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the views and causes of smoking tendency in the youth of Qom City, Iran.

This qualitative research employed the content analysis method. The research environment consisted of all public places and the research population consisted of the youth of Qom City, Iran. In total, 19 participants were selected by the purposive sampling method. The required data were collected by semi-structured interviews, i.e., recorded, transcribed, and analyzed with the consent of the study participants. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the achieved data.

Data analysis provided 3 main categories of environmental factors, individual, family, and 8 subcategories that included cultural acceptability, stimulants, economic and social issues, attitude toward smoking, curiosity and excitement, family supervision and control, relationships within the family, and substance dependence in family members.

Smoking and hookah use in youth is a multi-factor and multi-level phenomenon. Besides, the factors determining the tendency to them are at various environmental, individual, family levels; thus, they should be considered in the prevention, control, and smoking cessation of hookah.