Abstract
Purpose: We sought to clarify the relationships between candidate risk factors for adolescent smoking behavior (including smoking behaviors of family and friends and low global self-esteem) and future intention to smoke among never-smoking first-year students at a medical welfare university.
Method: From June to July 2016, we distributed a self-administered questionnaire to 553 never-smoking students aged 18–19 years (272 males, 281 females) just before they received smoking prevention education. The questionnaire obtained information on sex, smoking behavior, global self-esteem, smoking behavior of family and friends, and future intention to smoke. Global self-esteem was evaluated using the Japanese version of the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale. The participants were classified into two groups according to whether they expressed an intention to smoke in the future or not. We then evaluated the differences in the variables between groups via Student’s t-test and the chi-square test.
Results: Three hundred thirteen never-smoking first-year students (115 males, 198 females) participated in this study. Among male participants, the mean global self-esteem scores of the intenders and non-intenders were 24.4 and 25.1, respectively, while among female subjects, the mean scores were 22.9 and 24.0, respectively. Future intention to smoke was not significantly related with global self-esteem, family smoking behavior, or friends’ smoking behavior in either sex.
Conclusion: These select candidate risk factors for adolescent smoking behavior (i.e., smoking behaviors of family and friends, low global self-esteem) were not related to future intention to smoke among never-smoking first-year students at a medical welfare university.

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