A school-based study of the influence of students' relationship with teachers on their cigarette smoking behaviour in Jamaican

Background: Cigarette is one of the most widely used addictive substances and a leading cause of death. Prevalence of cigarette smoking has been reported to be high in the Caribbean, including Jamaica. The aim of this study was to determine whether students’ relationship with teachers influences their cigarette smoking behaviour in Jamaica.

Methods: This was a statistical analysis of data based on a nationally representative sample of 3,365 secondary school students drawn from 8th to 12th grade across 38 secondary schools in Jamaica in 2013. Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed using SPSS.

Results: There were significant differences in the past year and past month cigarette smoking respectively among students who had very good, good, average, bad and very bad relationship with their teachers (X2 = 11.67, p = 0.02; X2 = 9.61, p = 0.04) respectively. Students with very good relationship with teachers, were significantly less likely to report smoking cigarette in the past month (AOR= 0.09, 95% CI= 0.01- 0.88). Students who were 2 - 10 years, had very good relationship with teacher and father, and whose parents knew friends very well, were 0.96, 0.69, 0.70 and 0.94 times as likely to report smoking cigarette in the past year. However, these associations were not significant after controlling for other factors.

Conclusion: Students’ relationship with their teachers has a strong influence on cigarette smoking. Students with very good relationship with teachers were significantly less likely to report smoking cigarette in the past month.