The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: 1.To identify the common factors influencing him/her to smoke. 2. To discover the age at which the neapalese begin to smoke.

Methods: This is a prospective,randomized and analytical study. One of the most difficult task is to accurately measure public behaviour and to know the initiating factor- The best method to determine these initiating factor is to ask direct question regarding smoking. A questionnaire was prepared and each patient was interviewed by author. The questionnaire consisted of 10 items grouped under two major areas a) Identification b) Factors influencing smoking. This study was conducted in the " Free Clinic of GP" run through Balaji Propkar Samiti, Kathmandu, Nepal. 2242 patients were enrolled in the study and interviewed by the author during the period 1st Feb 2003-Feb 2005. The total numbers of smoker was 1988.

Results: 70.64% of the smoker were from the rural community. Males predominted by 71.7%. The predominant age group studied was from31-40 years(35%). The comparison with individual group p-value=0.001,odds ratio=3.6 and CI=2.55--5.21.The majority begin to smoke at 10-20 years of age.The major influencing factors to smoke came from associates and friends.