Association between cigarette smoking and mental health problems among students

introduction Smoking negative health effects such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory disease are studied extensively. Currently researchers are more concentrated on the mental effects of smoking. Aims: We aimed to evaluate correlation between cigrette smoking and mental health problems among students aged 17 to 19. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in a representative sample of high school students from Tehran General mental health was assessed by means of the 12-item General Health Questionnaire and smoking status evaluated by using a questionnaire. The questionnaires were administered by trained interviewers and were completed by the students in their classrooms.All analyses were performed by SPSS version 11.0 Results: In total, 4591 students were studied. The sample consisted of 2092 (45.6%) boys and 2499 (54.4%) girls. The overall mean age of the students was 17.53 .1620 (35.3%) of students were smoker.smoker students received General Health Questionnaire scores above the cut-off score 1.36 times more than non smokers(95% CI: 1.15-1.61). conclusion: Our findings showed a significant independent association of smoking to mental health problems in adolescents.Considering cross sectional design, we cannot assess causal relationship between smoking and mental health problem in our samples.It suggests doing more studies in this regard.