"Kicking the initiation": Do adolescent ex-smokers differ from other groups within the initiation continuum?

Background. Current research on the continuum of smoking initiation has lar gely focused on phases of progressing frequency of smoking. To gain more in sight into reasons some adolescents do, and others do not, proceed to advan ced levels of smoking behavior, a continuum in which two categories of ex-s moking are proposed is examined. Methods. Standardized scores on psychosocial predictors of smoking among ad olescent nonsmoking deciders and quitters were compared cross-sectionally w ith those of the categories of never smokers, triers, experimenters, and re gular smokers (n = 23,317). Results. Never smokers, triers, experimenters, and regular smokers had sign ificantly different characteristics with regard to psychosocial predictors of smoking (P < 0.01), with scores of never smokers indicating that they we re least at risk of smoking in the future and those of regular smokers indi cating that they were most at risk. Scores of nonsmoking deciders showed th at they were less at risk than triers and experimenters and more at risk th an never smokers. Quitters seemed to have less risky psychosocial character istics than experimenters and more risky characteristics than nonsmoking de ciders. Conclusions. Studying transitions of smoking behavior based on six possible phases (i.e., never smoking, nonsmoking deciding, trying, experimenting, r egular smoking, and quitting) might lead to more valid insights into predic tors of adolescent smoking behavior. (C) 2001 American Health Foundation an d Academic Press.