Parental separation/divorce in childhood and tobacco smoking in adulthood: A population-based study.

AIMS: The aim was to investigate associations between the experience of parental separation/divorce in childhood and tobacco smoking in adulthood, adjusting for economic stress in childhood and adulthood and psychological health (General Health Questionnaire GHQ12).

METHODS: The 2012 public-health survey in Skåne, southern Sweden, is a cross-sectional postal questionnaire population-based study with 28,029 participants aged 18-80 (51.7% response rate). Associations between parental separation/divorce in childhood and tobacco smoking were investigated in multiple logistic regression models, with adjustments for economic stress in childhood and adulthood and psychological health.

RESULTS: A 17.6% weighted prevalence of men and 17.1% of women reported tobacco smoking. Significantly higher odds ratios of tobacco smoking were observed for men who had experienced parental separation/divorce in childhood at ages 0-4, 5-9 and 15-18 years and for women with this experience in childhood at ages 0-4, 5-9, 10-14 and 15-18 years, even after inclusion of economic stress in childhood in the final multiple models. No effect modification was observed for parental separation and psychological health and for parental separation and economic stress in childhood with regard to smoking.

CONCLUSIONS: Experience of parental separation/divorce in childhood was significantly associated with tobacco smoking in adulthood for both sexes. There seems to be no specific critical period.