Background
: Today, adolescent smoking is one of the most serious problems in our society. In this study we surveyed the smoking status and patterns, nicotine dependency and factors associated with smoking for general high school students to provide helpful informations on adolescent smoking and its major risk factors which can be used to make intervention for high risk group.

Methods : In Feb. 1995, a total of 1803 students from 9 male and 8 female general high schools located in Seoul were assessed with self-completing questionnaire.

Results : Percentage of male smokers was 27.7% and that of female smokers was 6.6%. The median score of FTQ was 3.0 among male smokers and 2.0 among female smokers. Percentage of students with high FTQ score(FTQ≥7) was 6.3%. Major risk factors of adolesecnt smoking among males were low APGAR score, having smoking siblings, low marks at school, high proportion of the number of smoking friends, unclear perceptions of the negative effects of smoking, positive view to smoking behaviors. among females, low APGAR score, high proportion of the number of smoking female friends, unclear perccptions of the negative effects of smoking, positive view to smoking beha-viors were significant risk factors.

Conclusion : Adolescent smoking was more closely associated with quality of family functions and school/peer environmental factors rather than superficial family environmental factors. Since there are many different aspects of daily activities between high school students and adults, it is necessary to modify some items of FTQ in order to apply it more properly to smoking adolescents.