Preventing Tobacco use among adolescents in Sudan

Ph.D researcher:  Dr. Dafaallah B. Mohamed

Supervisor: Prof Hein De Vries

Co-researchers: Ciska. Hoving, Ph.D

Funding: No funding was received from Public or private sector

Objective:

-             To determine the prevalence of tobacco products among Sudanese adolescent

-             To know the determinants of tobacco behaviour among Sudanese adolescents.

-             To develop and implement smoking prevention program for Saudi adolescents.

-             To measure the effect of the intervention program

Method:  This cross-sectional study was conducted at Khartoum state, Sudan. The target population concerned school-going adolescents in 8th grade of basic education or 1st and 2nd grade of secondary education in Khartoum state, Sudan. A stratified two-stage cluster sampling technique was used to obtain representative samples of the adolescent's target population. Frequencies, Chi-square tests and Binary logistic regression analysis was used to identify the factors that had the strongest association with individual tobacco product ever use.

Results: A total of 1229 respondents were included in the analysis. The mean age was 14.5 years; the sample consisted of 56.4% boys. Prevalence of cigarettes,  mint cigarettes, shisha and tombak ever use were 13%, 7.8% 5.9% and 3.5%, respectively. Older respondents were 1.35 times more likely to have  ever smoked cigarettes (OR=1.35, 95% CI 1.20 - 1.52). Furthermore, boys were significantly more likely to have ever used any of the tobacco products assessed than girls. 

Publications: Not yet; under process.