A systematic review of smoking Youths’ perceptions of addiction and health risks associated with smoking: Utilizing the framework of the health belief model

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this paper was to systematically appraise youths’ perceptions of tobacco-cigarette-related addiction and health risks.

Methods: Five electronic databases were searched for articles relating to youth, smoking, and risk perception, and the references of relevant articles were hand searched resulting in 10 studies with over 2500 participants meeting the inclusion/exclusion criteria. Articles were systematically appraised based on risk perception according to susceptibility, severity, barriers, and benefits. Perceptions of health risks and addiction were categorized as optimistic among smoking youth, pessimistic among non-smoking youth, and realistic among a portion of older smoking youth.

Results: Smoking youth were optimistic and held self-exempting beliefs regarding likelihood of addiction, ability to quit, mortality, and tobacco-related diseases. Youth rationalized smoking by perceiving barriers to quitting as more relevant than the benefits of quitting, with this balance shifting when youth decided to attempt cessation.

Conclusions: Implications of these findings are widespread and offer insight for researchers, educators, and cessation interventionists, as awareness of self-exempting beliefs held by smoking youth creates a vantage point to facilitate behaviour change.

• Smoking
• youth
• perceptions of addiction
• health risks
• health belief model