Objective:

to determine the frequency, characteristics and socio-educational factors associated with consumption of snuff in secondary school level in a rural area of northern Peru.

Material and methods:

cross-sectional study based on a questionnaire that was applied to adolescent students from the first to fifth year of secondary level of a school in northern Peru. The main variable was tobacco consumption among students. Socio-educational variables were gender, age, year of study, place of origin, type of house where he lived (own, rent, pension) were. Frequencies and percentages for the descriptive analysis were described and generalized linear models were used for the statistical associa tion.

Results:

of the 155 students, 52.9% (82) were males, with a median age of 14 years. 9.7% (15) have ever smoked, 86.7% of them (13) have smoked out of curiosity and 86.7% (13) of their parents do not know that their children smoke. 40% (6) started smoking at age 14. 93.3% (14) smokes 1 cigarette per day and 60% (9) makes it with friends. Only 6.7% (1) currently smoke. Being male was associated with having smoked at some time (RPA: 16.6; 95% CI: 1.9 to 148.4; p value: 0.012), adjusted for age, year of study, residing in an urban area and living alone.

Conclusions:

there is a low frequency of smoking in secondary school level of a national parochial school. Gender and socio-educational factors were found associated with tobacco consumption. Gender and socio-educational factors were found associated with tobacco consumption.

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