DEVELOPING EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE

Developing evidence-based practice

Developing evidence-based practice

Introduction

This study will build on earlier studies by exploring for the existence of conditional relationships between parent and peer smoking behavior and individual factors such as age, school performance and depression.

Age is considered in this discussion because, during the various stages of adolescent development, relationships with parents and peers might be expected to vary in character and intensity, reflecting changes in social and cognitive development, although the empirical evidence for this assertion is mixed. Defining how parents' or peers' influence on smoking behavior may change during adolescent development could allow for the tailoring of prevention efforts.

This study explores the relationship between school performance and smoking initiation in a national longitudinal sample. It highlights the features of support system on provider adherence to the evidence-based PHS guidelines for smoking cessation.

Cigarette-smoking behavior of young people

School performance is a well-documented risk factor for smoking initiation (Tyas and Pederson 2008), but one which has received very limited attention since the early 2000s. School performance may reflect a number of characteristics. Logically, we would expect that school performance should reflect an adolescent's intellectual abilities- abilities which should allow for an accurate assessment of the risk of smoking. If school success is based on intelligence and problem-solving abilities, these skills would be expected to impact the smoking initiation process.

The lack of organizational support systems may be one of the reasons why some of the most cost-effective preventive care maneuvers available to clinicians, the consistent identification of tobacco users and provision of advice to quit, are still not performed at satisfactory levels in most medical settings. As evidence-based smoking cessation practice guidelines are available, it is important to identify managerial or clinical strategies that create the necessary system orientation within a care setting that can promote preventive care quality by increased adherence to these guidelines.

A number of other factors such as gender, race and socioeconomic status have also been found to have a relationship to smoking initiation. These factors will be considered in these analyses primarily as control variables, although their recent historical trends do also provide support for the importance of looking at these kinds of social factors in the etiology of cigarette smoking.

Purpose of the Study

This study will explore the relationship between school performance and smoking initiation in a national longitudinal sample. No studies were found that tested for either a main effect of school performance in this type of sample or the possibility of an interaction effect between school performance and factors such as peer and parental smoking affecting the probability of smoking initiation.

Sample- The Teenage Attitudes and Practices Survey (TAPS)

The study uses longitudinal data on a subset of a sample of 7,960 adolescents who took part in the UK National Center for Health Statistics Teenage Attitudes and Practices Surveys (TAPS) carried out in 2009 (UK Department of Health and Human Services 2009) and 2003 (UK Department of Health and Human Services 2003). The TAPS was a supplemental component of the National Health Interview ...