Research Article Second-Hand Smoking among Intermediate and Secondary School Students in Madinah, Saudi Arabia

Copyright © 2015 Abdulmohsen H. Al-Zalabani et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background and objectives. Second-hand smoke (SHS) is an important public health problem worldwide. The study aimed to estimate the prevalence of SHS exposure and its associated risk factors among intermediate and secondary school students.Methods. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2013 among 3400 students from 34 intermediate and secondary schools in Madinah City, SaudiArabia.Data about sociodemographic and smoking-related factors and SHS exposurewere collected using a self-administered questionnaire. Results. Of the 3210 students analyzed, the prevalence of SHS exposure was 32.7 % 49.3%, and 25 % inside, outside, and both inside and outside the home, respectively. The highest risk of SHS exposure was associated with the adolescent’s smoking status, parental smoking, close friends smoking, and family structure.The risk was markedly increased in association with parental smoking for exposure inside the home (OR = 6.49; 95 % CI = 5.44–7.73) and with close friends smoking for exposure outside the home (OR = 4.16; 95 % CI = 3.54–4.77). The risk of SHS, however, was lower among adolescents having knowledge about smoking and highly educated parents. Conclusion. The study revealed a considerably high prevalence of SHS both inside and outside th