PRECIOSO, José. Factores de risco relacionados com as várias fases da “carreira” de fumador: Implicações para a prevenção. []. , 26, 2, pp.177-192. ISSN 0870-8231.

The biggest risk that young people face when they start to smoke is to become addicted to tobacco, often for their whole life, exposing themselves to an immediate and future risk of contracting serious diseases. There has been, in recent years, an increasing prevalence of tobacco use in young people of both sexes, particularly in girls. To determine the risk factors associated with the experimental, occasional and regular consumption of cigarettes. A questionnaire was applied to a sample of 330 students, of whom 173 (52%) were boys and 157 (48%) girls. The average age is 13 years. The majority of the sample students began smoking at around 11 years of age, being the school the main place of initiation. Individual factors (curiosity, low assertiveness, etc.), micro social (the smoking of parents and friends) and environmental (ease in buying cigarettes), among others, are related to the various stages of the “career of smoking”. Being a multifactorial behaviour, it is necessary to develop and implement comprehensive strategies, to counteract the set of risk factors related to smoking in a continuous way, in order to prevent young people from starting a damaging career of smokers.

: Smoking; prevention; health risk factors.

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