Smoking ZD6474 Experience Smoking status was determined by the response to the following questions: (a) ��During your ENTIRE LIFE, about how many times have you smoked a few puffs of a cigarette?�� and (b) ��During your ENTIRE LIFE, about how many times have you smoked a whole cigarette?�� ��Never-smokers�� were defined as never having smoked a cigarette or even having a few puffs, and ��ever-smokers�� were defined as having ever smoked at least one cigarette. Qualitative Measures During the interviews, adolescents were asked, ��How do you define a smoker?�� Probes were used to generate more detail, such as, ��Is there a certain amount of cigarettes you need to smoke to be a smoker?��, and adolescents were encouraged to clarify and expand on their answers.
Statistical Analysis Descriptive measures were generated for all variables of interest. Independent sample t tests with Levene��s test for equality of variances and chi-square tests were employed in order to test for significant differences in definitions between never-smokers and ever-smokers as well as between genders. All quantitative analyses were performed using SPSS 17.0. For the qualitative data, verbatim transcripts were independently reviewed by the principal investigator and research team. The use of an interdisciplinary research team and presentation of preliminary findings with colleagues helped to validate the themes that were extracted and identified from the transcripts and to clarify investigator biases. For the purposes of this study, representative themes and quotes were selected to illustrate the quantitative findings.
Results Sample Characteristics The gender distribution of the survey sample was balanced (47.3% male, 52.7% female) with an age range of 12�C16 years (mean = 14.6 years, SD = 0.7). The sample was ethnically diverse, with 48.7% White/Non-Hispanic, 23.7% Asian/Pacific-Islander, 17.5% Hispanic or Latino, and 5.1% of other ethnicities. Nineteen participants (5.1%) declined to state their ethnicity. The qualitative interview sample showed similar gender distribution as the main sample (45.0% male and 55.0% female). Forty interviews were conducted with 22 never-smokers (32.0% male and 68.0% female) and 18 ever-smokers (55.0% male and 45% female). Adolescent Characterization of Smoker Types Adolescent characterization of smoker types by frequency, amount, place, and length of cigarette smoking is shown in Tables 1�C4, respectively.
Given Entinostat that our focus is on how adolescents define different types of smokers, we present the results by smoker type. Nonsmoker The majority of adolescent participants (>90%) characterized a ��nonsmoker�� as an individual who never smokes, smokes 0 cigarettes (92.5%), and smokes nowhere (96.0%). However, some adolescents described a nonsmoker as an individual who does smoke.