parent-child relationship and smoking among college students: role of parents in females’ and males’ smoking behavior

Objective: youth smoking has long been a major concern at individual, familial, and national levels. the purpose of the current study was to investigate the role of parent-child relationship in the smoking behavior and smoking intensity among college students. we also aimed to investigate gender-specific variations in the association between mother-child and father-child relationships and smoking behavior and its intensity among female and male college students. methods: the sample consisted of college students (n=242: 142 smokers, 99 nonsmokers) who were selected using snowball sampling method among the students of guilan university. participants completed the parent-child relationship survey and fagerstrom test for nicotine dependence. binary and multinomial logistic regressions were used for analyzing. results: results showed that mother-child relationship, but not father-child relationship, was the significant predictor of smoking status. also, mother-child relationship could predict low to moderate levels of dependence on nicotine. finally, among male students, mother-child relationship was the significant predictor of smoking. neither mother-child nor father-child relationships were the significant predictors of smoking status among female students. conclusion: further research is needed to clear our understanding of gender-specific correlates of smoking among youth.