Instability in smoking patterns among school leavers in Victoria, Australia

Abstract

Objective - To describe patterns of smoking in a cohort of young adults over the first 15 months after leaving school. Design - A four-wave, longitudinal survey design was used to gather data. Final-year students from 93 schools completed the recruitment questionnaire at an average age of 17 years. Follow-up questionnaires were posted to their home addresses three months, nine months and 15 months after the end of school. Setting - Victoria, Australia. Participants - A cohort of 1903 respondents who completed and returned all four questionnaires. Main outcome measures - Self-labelled smoking status ("heavy smoker", "light smoker", "occasional smoker", "ex-smoker", and "non-smoker"), daily ci..