Ecology & Safety, Volume 17, 2023

Abstract: Tobacco control experts must concentrate their efforts to prevent smoking and to promote cessation before adolescents become addicted to nicotine. Our aim was to determine different factors associated with tobacco use among high school students. Susceptibility to smoking, defined as a lack of a firm commitment not to smoke, is therefore useful in estimating which young people can become smokers and under whose influence the status of susceptibility can change. The aim of this study is to assess the association between the susceptibility of tobacco use and psychosocial and sociodemographic factors. The current study is a repeated cross-sectional secondary analysis of data collected using a questionnaire administered in 2015 and 2018 among ninth-grade students in Chisinau, Republic of Moldova. The prevalence of susceptibility to cigarette smoking among the study participants was 38.6% in 2015 and 50.2% in 2018 (p<0,001). Our result indicates that smoking friends represent a strong predictor of high smoking susceptibility among those who have never smoked. The temptation to smoke increased significantly during the period covered by the study from 1.32 (0.67) to 1.48 (0.66) (p < 0.001). In conclusion the connection between socio-demographic factors (smoking parents or friends) and psycho-emotional factors (temptation to smoke) will increase the likelihood of smoking among adolescents.