Relationship between Cigarette Smoking and Depression Symptoms of High School Students

Smoking among adolescents is a major public health problem. This study was performed to determine the association between cigarette smoking and depression Symptoms of high school students. Data were drawn from the Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey 2009. Subjects were 36,657 high school students living in the community. Adjusting for covariates (sex, school year, school education, economics, school record, hours of sleep per day, self-reported stress, self reported happiness, self-reported health status, suicidal thinking), smoker(OR=1.43, 95% CI: 1.35-1.50), 10~19 cigarettes per day(OR=1.48, 95% CI: 1.22-1.79) and more than 20 cigarettes per day(OR=2.05, 95% CI: 1.59-2.64) were independent risk factors for depression Symptoms. It was found that cigarette smoking is a independent factor related to adolescent depression. Adolescent smoking cessation is needed to management of adolescent depression.