الفهرس 
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Abstract
obacco smoking is the practice where tobacco is burned and the vapor either tasted or inhaled. The practice began as early as5000-3000 BC.As of 2000, smoking was practiced by 1.22 billion people. Many smokers began to smoke during adolescence or early childhood. As of 2002 about 20% of young teens (13-15 years) smoked worldwide. Children of smoking parents are more likely to smoke than children with non-smoking parents Smoking kills one half of all smokers who don’t manage to stop. The reports of the WHO reported that smoking is the leading preventable cause of death worldwide. In the present study we have evaluated 240 1ry school students from those attending the outpatient clinic of Ain Shams pediatric hospital, Ain-Shams University. As regards the demographic data, the mean age of students was 11.5 years. There were 140 boys (58.3%) and 100 girls (41.7%).
We had 99% response rate. The total prevalence of tobacco smoking detected was 10.4% which was detected by the CO Micro+ smokerlyzer as all students participated in our study answered they were non- smokers in the self-
administrative questionnaire. This may be due to the fear of social and familial refusal and punishment. As regards family history of smoking, 138 students (57.5%) of students had at least one smoker in their families. The number one smoker among their family members was the father as 108 students (78.3%) had a father who smoked. Unfortunately environmental tobacco smoking couldn’t be detected by the CO Micro+ smokerlyzer but exposure of those children to passive smoking inside their homes was crudely estimated through the questionnaire as 47.9% of students reported that they were exposed to cigarette smoke at home. Only 5.6% of students were invited to try cigarettes mostly by their friends and colleagues and they were all boys. ”Smoking is bad for health” was the main answer given by the students (89%) when they asked why they didn’t smoke? 62.1% of students were aware of the health risks of smoking and the combination of lung cancer, respiratory diseases and cardiac diseases was the most frequent answer given by them. 75.4% of students thought that the media fulfills its role in emphasizing health risks of tobacco.
As regards the results of CO Micro+ smokerlyzer test, it revealed 2 actual smokers (more than 7ppm), 23 students in the dangerous zone i.e. potential smokers (5-6ppm) and215 non-smokers (less than5 ppm) as 5ppm is considered the cut value between smokers and non-smokers. There were significantly higher percentages of boys who knew hazards of smoking when compared to girls with an Odd ratio of1.29 (95%CL; 1.04-1.61). Boys showed significantly higher rates of smoking (15%) when compared to girls (4%), P<0.05.Boys were more than 3times involved in smoking than girls with an Odd ratio of 3.95(CI; 1.17 -7.69). In general the prevalence of smoking among all categories of family members is higher among non-smokers compared to smokers (56% of smokers and58.6%of non-smokers had smokers among their family members who was mainly the father. Among smokers 85.7% had father who smoked while among non-smokers, 75.4% had father who smoked. The associations between father’s and sibling’s smoking habit are found to be statistically insignificant based on chi-square tests (P = 0.19).