Cigarette smoking in adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus and congenital adrenal hyperplasia

Özet

Adolescence is a long period involving many physical and psycho-social changesexperienced during transition from childhood to adulthood. In this period,behaviors such as curiosity and risk-taking are common, and cigarette smokinginitiation is one of those behaviors. In this study, it was aimed to find outwhether chronic diseases are an effective factor or not in the cigarette smokinginitiation of adolescents. One-hundred adolescents with Type 1 DiabetesMellitus (T1DM) and 50 adolescents with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia(CAH) aged 12 and above under follow-up at the Pediatric EndocrinologyClinic and 100 healthy adolescents within the same age group who appliedto the Adolescent Outpatient Clinic were included in the study. A survey wasapplied to all of these adolescents, which had been developed by researchersand contained questions about their socio-demographic features and cigarettesmoking. Fourteen (5.6%) of the 250 adolescents were smokers. The rate ofthose who tried, but quitted cigarette smoking was found as approximately20%. Cigarette smoking rate of those with T1DM was 1%, of those withCAH was 4%, and of the healthy adolescents was 11%. Cigarette smokingwas significantly lower in those with a chronic disease (2%) than thosewho were healthy (11%). Adolescents’ parents and friends had an effect onthe cigarette smoking initiation, and adolescents smoked their first cigarettegenerally because of curiosity.It was seen in this study that the adolescents with a chronic disease lessfrequently smoked cigarettes than the healthy adolescents, the rate of cigarettesmoking in parents of cigarette smoking adolescents was very high, and theirparents and friends had an effect on cigarette smoking initiation of adolescents.