FC03-01 - The Association Between School Bonding and Smoking Amongst Adolescents in Chilean Schools

Objective To study the association between school bonding dimensions (school commitment and school attachment) and current adolescent smoking in Chile, controlling for confounding variables using the Fifth Chilean School Population National Substance Use Survey, 2003 (CHSS-2003) dataset. Methods The CHSS-2003 is a stratified cross-sectional survey which gathers information about personal, familial, peer, school factors and cigarette use using a self-reported questionnaire. Complete data from 21,956 adolescent students for all the variables of interest were used in the analyses. An Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was performed in order to test the construct validity of the questionnaire and create the main exposure and potential confounding variables. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were undertaken to study the association between school bonding and smoking. Results The construct validity of the school attachment and school commitment scales was supported by the EFA. Multivariable analyses showed strong evidence that, after adjusting for factors from different domains, school commitment (student's good grades and school attendance) appears to have a clear inverse association with current smoking (OR=0.46; 95%CI: 0.38-0.56). On the other hand, school attachment (their feelings towards their school and their teachers) was not associated with adolescent smoking (OR=1.16; 95%CI: 0.88-1.53) Conclusions School commitment was strongly associated with current smoking. It is important to study further this variable with the aim of ascertaining whether or not interventions that improve school commitment may prevent or reduce smoking amongst adolescent students.