Parental influence on cigarette smoking among secondary school students in Kilungu district, Makueni county Kenya
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Date
2014-07-24
Authors
Muswii, Zipporah
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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.