College Students' Smoking Behavior, Perceived Stress, and Coping Styles

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine college students' smoking behavior as well as their current smoking status and its effects on perceived levels of stress and coping styles. Students from four universities completed the Perceived Stress Scale, the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations and a smoking questionnaire. Of the 1330 students who participated in the study, 19 percent were current smokers. On the Perceived Stress Scale, current smokers' mean score was significantly higher than that of the students who had never smoked. In addition, the current smokers' mean score for Emotion-oriented Coping was significantly higher than that of the students who had never smoked or formerly smoked. The former smokers' mean score on Avoidance-oriented Coping was significantly lower than the never and the current smokers. Ten percent of the students smoked their first cigarette after high school, while 11 percent started to smoke on a daily basis after high school. Based on the findings, programs that focus on smoking prevention and cessation for college students are recommended.

College Students' Perspective on Smoking Cessation: “If the Message Doesn't Speak to Me, I Don't Hear It”

“…Consistent with other studies, 16% of these college students indicated that they became regular smokers after 18 years of age (DeBernardo et al, 1999;Everett et al, 1999;Wechsler et al, 1998). Their reasons for beginning smoking related to stress, image, and intrigue as reported by others (Naquin & Gilbert, 1996;Schorling et al, 1994). Consistent with other studies, smokers who did not want to quit recognized that smoking had negative effects, but did not believe that these effects would occur in the near future or that quitting would be too difficult and disenfranchise them from their smoking friends (DeBernardo et al, 1999).…”

“…Studies of psychological correlates of college smokers show that they are more likely to express lower life satisfaction (Emmons et al, 1998;Schorling, Gutgesell, Klas, Smith, & Keller, 1994) and have higher levels of perceived stress than former smokers or those who never smoked (Naquin & Gilbert, 1996). High levels of alcohol use both in college (Emmons et al, 1998;Schorling et al, 1994) and high school (Emmons et al, 1998) were associated with cigarette smoking among college students.…”

The Playful Advantage: How Playfulness Enhances Coping with Stress

“…Perceived stress has been studied in a variety of contexts, such as smoking cessation (Cohen & Lichtenstein, 1990;Hajek, Taylor, & McRobbie, 2010;Naquin & Gilbert, 1996), caregiver burden (Bedini, Gladwell, & Dudley, 2011;Chwalisz, 1992;Chwalisz & Kisler, 1995), life events (Beatty, Lee, & Wade, 2009;Cohen et al, 1993;Otto et al, 1997), and leisure (Aldana, Sutton, Jacobson, & Quirk, 1996;Bedini et al, 2011;Kleiber et al, 2002;Lutz, Lochbaum, Lanning, Stinson, & Brewer, 2007). Perceived stress has also been found to relate to an assortment of psychosocial and physiological constructs, such as personality (Besser & Shackelford, 2007;Burgess, Irvine, & Wallymahmed, 2010;Candrian et al, 2008;Ebstrup, Eplov, Pisinger, & Jørgensen, 2011), affect (Besser & Shackelford, 2007;Cohen et al, 1993;Davidsdottir, 2007), self-efficacy (Ebstrup et al, 2011;Moeini et al, 2008;Trouillet, Gana, Lourel, & Fort, 2009), attachment (Cordon, Brown, & Gibson, 2009;Koopman et al, 2000;McCarthy, Moller, & Fouladi, 2001;Reiner, Anderson, Hall, & Hall, 2010), adjustment (Baker, 2004;Curtis, Groarke, Coughlan, & Gsel, 2004;Extremera, Durán, & Rey, 2007;Kulik & Heine-Cohen, 2011), depression (Candrian et al, 2008;Ghorbani, Krauss, Watson, & LeBreton, 2008;Holt-Lunstad, Birmingham, & Light, 2011), happiness …”

“…Perceived stress has also been found to relate to an assortment of psychosocial and physiological constructs, such as personality (Besser & Shackelford, 2007;Burgess, Irvine, & Wallymahmed, 2010;Candrian et al, 2008;Ebstrup, Eplov, Pisinger, & Jørgensen, 2011), affect (Besser & Shackelford, 2007;Cohen et al, 1993;Davidsdottir, 2007), self-efficacy (Ebstrup et al, 2011;Moeini et al, 2008;Trouillet, Gana, Lourel, & Fort, 2009), attachment (Cordon, Brown, & Gibson, 2009;Koopman et al, 2000;McCarthy, Moller, & Fouladi, 2001;Reiner, Anderson, Hall, & Hall, 2010), adjustment (Baker, 2004;Curtis, Groarke, Coughlan, & Gsel, 2004;Extremera, Durán, & Rey, 2007;Kulik & Heine-Cohen, 2011), depression (Candrian et al, 2008;Ghorbani, Krauss, Watson, & LeBreton, 2008;Holt-Lunstad, Birmingham, & Light, 2011), happiness (Brief, Burke, George, Robinson, & Webster, 1988;Chatters, 1988;Feist, Bodner, Jacobs, Miles, & Tan, 1995;Schiffrin & Nelson, 2010), health related behavior (Naquin & Gilbert, 1996;Rod, Grønbaek, Schnohr, Prescott, & Kristensen, 2009;Wichianson, Bughi, Unger, Spruijt-Metz, & Nguyen-Rodriguez, 2009), and health problems (Cohen et al, 1993;Lovell, Moss, Wetherell, 2011;Nielsen et al, 2008).…”

Stress among higher education students: towards a research agenda

“…Other negative outcomes associated with stress include increased alcohol consumption (Morgan 1997), smoking (Naquin et al 1996), reduction in immune system functioning (Sarid et al 2004) and an increased tendency to consider suicide (Hirsch et al 1996). For many students perhaps the most significant response to stress is a reduction in their academic performance.…”