Parental influence on cigarette smoking among secondary school students in Kilungu district, Makueni county Kenya

Abstract

Despite government's effort to control drug abuse in Kenya cigarettes smoking remains the second abused drug in secondary schools. Cigarette smoking among adolescents is caused by several factors among them parental influence. This study seeks to provide information on parent's behaviour, attitude and practices in relation to cigarette smoking among their children in secondary schools in Kilungu district, Makueni County, Kenya. Parental influence will be measured by examining parental behavior, attitude and parental monitoring among other parental attributes. The study will be guided by social learning theory and reality therapy. The study will use ex post facto survey design and the participants will be secondary school male students selected from form one to form four. The study will concentrate on male students because they have reported higher use of cigarettes than girls in most past studies. Simple random sampling technique will be used to select a total of 284 respondents and data will be collected by use of closed ended and open ended questions. The data will be analyzed by use of descriptive statistics which will include frequency distribution tables, measures of central tendency and chi-square among others. The expected findings are that parental influence examined from various dimensions will yield different results than when it is viewed from parental behavior only. The study will help policy makers to formulate intervention measures aimed at creating awareness to parents on dangers of cigarette smoking and deviate from mainly blaming friends and peers among other factors. The study will create knowledge on status of cigarette smoking in secondary schools in Kilungu District as well as create knowledge which can be compared with studies done elsewhere.