Title
New insights into the compulsion to use tobacco from an adolescent case-series
PubMed ID
19406464
UMMS Affiliation
Department of Family Medicine and Community Health
Date
2-2010
Document Type
Article
Subjects
Adolescent; Adult; Female; Humans; Impulse Control Disorders; Incidence; Male; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; Tobacco Use Disorder; Young Adult
Disciplines
Community Health | Preventative Medicine
Abstract
Nicotine addiction is the most common preventable cause of premature death presenting during adolescence. No prior study has described the onset of this condition based on case histories. We used trained personnel to conduct individual semi-structured interviews to obtain case histories from 50 adolescent and young adult current and former smokers. Smokers experience a compulsion to use tobacco that spans a spectrum of severity from wanting, to craving, to needing. The compulsion is commonly experienced as originating foreign to the will of the smoker and recurs with a predictable periodicity that determines the latency from smoking one cigarette to wanting, craving or needing another. Novice smokers could experience latencies as lengthy as a few weeks, and more experienced smokers attributed their escalation in smoking frequency to the shortening of their latencies. Wanting, craving or needing tobacco, as described in this study, are pathognomonic for a compulsion to use tobacco. Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Rights and Permissions
Citation: J Adolesc. 2010 Feb;33(1):209-14. Epub 2009 Apr 29. Link to article on publisher's site