Psychosocial Correlates of Cigarette Smoking among College Students in China

Objectives: To examine the smoking practice and intention among Chinese college students and to explore the association between cigarette smoking and individual and psychosocial factors. Methods: Cross-sectional data were collected from 1,874 students from 19 college campus in Jiangsu Province, China. Both bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed to assess the associations of smoking practice and intention with various individual and psychosocial factors. Results: Overall, 53% of the participants reported ever having smoked in their lifetime and 29% of the sample reported having smoked in the past 30 days. About one-fourth of the sample thought they were likely to smoke in next 6 months. The data suggest a strong association of cigarette smoking with peer smoking, positive personal attitudes towards smoking, and engagement in other health risk behaviors, with these associations persisting even after controlling for other potential confounders. Conclusion: The data suggest a substantial smoking experimentation among college students in China, which presents both a challenge and an opportunity to prevent a large proportion of experimenters from progressing to regular smokers. Several findings in the current study can be used to inform the development of effective smoking intervention prevention programs among college students in China.