Prospective social-psychological factors of adolescent smoking progression

Purpose: To evaluate the ability of social-psychological risk factors to predict adolescent smoking behavior. Methods: Nonsmoking adolescents (n = 4032) who participated in the 1989 and 1993 Teenage Attitudes and Practices Surveys (TAPS I) were selected for analyses. Four multivariate logistic models were used to examine (a) adolescents' smoking initiation, (b) adults' smoking initiation, (c) adolescents' progression to regular smoking, and (d) adults' progression to regular smoking. A series of social-psychological variables were measured. Results: All four models were significant. However, no social-psychological factors were consistently significant in all four models, except white ethnicity. Data showed that social-psychological factors are less able to predict the transition from nonsmoking to experimental smoking than that from nonsmoking to regular smoking. Conclusions: Future prospective studies should measure both social-psychological and smoking acquisition factors at closer intervals to more accurately examine potential relationships. (C) Society for Adolescent Medicine, 1998.