Prevalence and Correlate of Smoking among Adolescent in Nigeria

Prevalence and Correlate of Smoking among Adolescent in Nigeria

Literature Review

An alarming increase of popularity on smoking grabbed the many of the attention among the various people within the community. The health care professionals are promoting the quality of health and wellness but the growing rate of people engaged in smoking doesn’t reflect the effectiveness of the government’s prohibit laws and the encouragement of the health care advocates. In today’s situation, more and more individuals are experiencing the difficulty in breathing and achieving the quality of healthy living because of the impact of smoke and their addiction to the cigarettes and/or tobacco. Even if the government is attempting to minimize the impact of the health issues through the different advertising and limitations on selling the cigarettes, still the demand to the puff remain high and there is a significant increase on the numbers of teenagers involves in the cigar addiction (HeartPoint Gallery, 1997).

The Smoking Addiction

Nicotine is one of the ingredients inside the pulp of tobacco. The same ingredient is attacking the brain of the person most especially the certified smoker. The nicotine, according to the experts, is also same as the heroin or cocaine because there is an addiction and the person can hardly find the way to escape in this kind of action. The mentioned addictive drugs tend to circulate directly to the brain and may create internal casualties. Over time, the effect of the nicotine decreases and if the smoker increases his personal demand on the smoking, there is a great negative impact in achieving the quality health and well-being. In the attempt of the person to break in his smoking addiction and habits, there are obvious symptoms of withdrawal because their bodies, moods, and brain needs to adjust and this withdrawal may take some time before perfecting the strategy in avoiding to smoke again. The common forms of symptoms may be in depression, insomnia, irritability, frustration, anger, anxiety, restlessness, difficulty in focusing on their everyday activities (CDC, 2003).

According to the study of Adebiyi and his associates (2010), the tobacco use has become a rapidly growing problem worldwide as well as in many developing countries. It is projected that over the next 50 years close to 450 million deaths would be caused by tobacco use. While it has been established that many smokers start before the age of 18 years, there, is the increasing trend in smoking prevalence amongst youths and the likelihood that many of these young people who begin to smoke at an early age, will continue to do so throughout adulthood. Furthermore, the years of potential life lost attributable to tobacco related diseases will continue to increase if we do not target interventions to prevent smoking initiation among youths. Factors associated with increasing uptake of smoking behavior among youths include low self-esteem, stressful life events, friends who smoke, advertisement and living with a smoker.

In addition, Adebiyi, et. al.  (2010) identified that the patterns of tobacco use however vary from region to region and interventions for tobacco control also differ. In developed countries, systematic data collection procedures are available for documenting the prevalence and pattern of tobacco use but these procedures are sub-optimal in developing countries. Hence, there is lack of adequate research to guide policy and interventions. Although studies examining smoking among youths have been documented in Nigeria, these are skewed towards describing pattern of use amongst in-school youths in urban areas. However, many of the factors associated with adverse health behaviors which may include smoking initiation and persistence are known to be commoner amongst out-of-school youth because of their aggregation in areas lacking adult supervision. The term “out-of-school youth” is used to define several groups of young people: those who have dropped out of school, those who never attended school, or those who participate in non formal school programs. These youths are a diverse group who may have completed elementary school (but lack basic skills to progress to high school or vocational training), dropped out or never started school. Those who drop out of school may fail to acquire fundamentals of basic education and life skills. This study describes tobacco use amongst a set of adolescents who are more likely to be overlooked by program planners. Presently, this group is under-studied and under-represented in smoking prevention interventions in Nigeria. Generally speaking, literature is lacking on the availability of a sound theoretical basis for developing interventions aimed at adolescent smoking cessation. It is thus hoped that this study would provide a template for the derivation of a theory-based approach to researching and understanding adolescent tobacco use as the basis for effective policy formulations.

References:

Adebiyi, A.O., Faseru, B., Sangowawa, A.O., & Owoaje, E.T., (2010) Tobacco use amongst out of School Adolescents in a Local Government Area in Nigeria, Substance Abuse Treat Prevalence Policy, 5(24) [Online] Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2978201/ [Accessed 23 March 2011].

CDC, 2003. Cigarette Smoking and Lung Cancer, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Epidemiology Program Office Case Studies in Applied Epidemiology No. 731-703 [Online] Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/eis/casestudies/xsmoke.student.731-703.pdf [Accessed 23 March 2011].

HeartPoint Gallery, 1997. Smoking – Getting Quit [Online] Available at: http://www.heartpoint.com/smoking.html [Accessed 23 March 2011].

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