Effect of parental control on students' perceptions of benefits/harms of smoking

Objective: This study was conducted in order to examine the effect of the parental control perceived by the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade elementary school students on their perceptions of smoking. Method: Sample of the study consisted of 514 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students selected from the schools affiliated to the Provincial Directorate for National Education of İzmir through the method of simple random sampling to represent each one of three socio-economic groups. Data were obtained through Child Decision Balance Scale and Parent Monitoring Scale Adolescent Form. They were collected between 15 February and 15 March. Mean value, percentage calculations, Kruskal Wallis analysis, t-test in corrected independent groups for advanced analysis and corrected Mann-Whitney U test were used in the evaluation of the data. Findings: 266 of the students participating in the research were female while 248 of them were male. While 39.3 % (202) of the participants were sixth-grade students, 29.8 % (153) of them were seventh-grade students and 30.9 % of them (159) were eighth-grade students. A statistically significant difference was detected between the mean scores of the students (p=0.000) in the smoking benefit perceptions according to the status of perceiving the parental attitude. Likewise, statistically significant differences were found between the students? mean scores of smoking benefit perception in the school monitoring subdimension of parental control (p=0.046), of smoking harm perception in the health monitoring subdimension (p=0.037) and of smoking benefit perception in the restrictive monitoring subdimension (p=0.000). Conclusion: It was determined that smoking benefit perceptions of the children with high perceived parental control are low while their smoking harm perceptions are high. Key Words: Smoking benefit and harm perception, Parental control, Decision Balance Scale, Adolescent, Smoking