Alcohol Drinking and Cigarette Smoking Among Thai Hearing
Impaired Adolescents

Pornnapa Homsin¹, Rungrat Srisuriyawet²

¹phomsin09@gmail.com , ²sroongrat12@gmail.com

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to identify the prevalence of alcohol drinking and cigarette smoking and to analyze the factors related to alcohol drinking and cigarette smoking among hearing impaired adolescents. The Theory of Triadic Influence (TTI) was used as a conceptual framework. The 289 participants were hearing impaired male and female upper secondary school students studying in schools for the deaf. Data were collected with questionnaires. Descriptive statistical analysis and binary logistic regression with a 95% confidence intervnal were used to analyze the data. The results of the study showed that the prevalence of alcohol drinking and cigarette smoking among hearing impaired adolescents were 49.5% and 24.8% respectively. Factors related to alcohol drinking were attitude towards alcohol drinking (OR=5.63; 95%CI=2.843-11.129), offers of alcohol drinking (OR=17.94; 95%CI=7.637- 42.132) and parental approval of alcohol drinking (OR=2.10; 95%CI=1.105-3.994). Factors related to cigarette smoking were gender (OR=2.36; 95%CI=1.001-5.564), attitude towards alcohol drinking (OR=3.50; 95%CI=1.514-8.095), peer smoking (OR=3.67; 95 %CI=199-11.245) and offers of smoking (OR=24.84, 95%CI=6.980-88.363). The study results contribute to the overall understanding and knowledge of alcohol drinking and smoking behaviors among hearing impaired adolescents. Accordingly, these findings will be useful to be as a guideline to plan and develop effective prevention programs tailored to the context of hearing impaired adolescents, in order to prevent them from alcohol drinking and cigarette smoking.

Keywords:Alcohol Drinking, Cigarette Smoking, Hearing Impaired Adolescents