The effect of parental attitudes and perception of social support on cigarette use in adolescents

Addictive substance use, such as smoking, usually occurs during adolescence and negatively affects the adolescent's life in many ways. Parental attitudes and social support sources perceived by the adolescent play an important role in the adolescent's acquisition of unwanted and harmful habits. The aim of this study was to compare the parental attitudes and perceived social support levels of adolescents who smoke and do not smoke and to examine the effects of these two variables on adolescents' smoking behavior. The study was conducted as a descriptive and comparative study and was conducted in state high schools affiliated to the National Education Directorate in the center of Çorum between 18.04.2024 and 08.06.2024 (N=14,756). 640 students who met the specified sampling criteria and participated with parental consent were included in the study. In the data collection process, "Student Information Form", "Parent Attitude Scale (ABTÖ)" and "Multidimensional Perceived Social Support Scale (ÇBASDÖ)" were used. The findings were analyzed using the SPSS Statistics V26 program. Descriptive data were presented as frequency, percentage, minimum, maximum, mean and standard deviation; the Shapiro-Wilk test was used to assess whether the data showed normal distribution. Differences between the two groups were examined using the independent samples t test or the Mann Whitney U test; Pearson chi-square and Fisher exact tests were used for categorical variables. Relationships between variables were analyzed using the Spearman correlation coefficient. In this study, in which 640 adolescents participated, 53.44% were male and 66.9% (n=119) of these male students smoked. The rate of male students who smoked was significantly higher than that of females (p<0.001). 51.7% of adolescents who smoked stated that most of their friends smoked, and 35.9% of non-smokers stated that some of their friends smoked, and the difference between them was found to be significant (p<0.001). Adolescent smokers had lower scores on the ABTÖ psychological autonomy and monitoring/control sub-dimensions than non-smokers, and these differences were found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). It was also determined that students who smoked had significantly higher scores on the ÇBASDÖ family, friend sub-dimensions and the total scores of the ÇBASDÖ than non-smokers (p<0.05). A positive relationship was found between the ABTÖ acceptance/care sub-dimension of adolescents and the ÇBASDÖ family, friends, a special person sub-dimensions and the ÇBASDÖ total score (respectively; r=0.298; r=0.374; r=0.605; r=0.480), and between the ABTÖ psychological autonomy sub-dimension and the ÇBASDÖ a special person sub-dimension and the ÇBASDÖ total score (respectively; r=0.224; r=0.108). A positive relationship was determined. It has been determined that the adolescent's having a friend who smokes and having smokers in the family has an effect on smoking. It has been observed that the psychological autonomy and low monitoring/control values have an effect on smoking. As a result, it was determined that adolescents who smoke are provided with less psychological autonomy, supervision and control by their parents and perceive family and friend support more than those who do not use it. Providing psychological autonomy and appropriate supervision to their children by families can be protective against adolescents' smoking. While proper social support increases adolescents' positive feelings, professional support from the nurse is complementary to this process.