Background: The aim of this study was to examine the effects of perceived parental attitudes on children’sdiscernment of cigarettes. Materials and Methods: The study sample consisted of 250 children attending grades6, 7 and 8. Data were collected via a socio-demographic survey questionnaire, the Parental Attitude Scale (PAS)and the Decisional Balance Scale (DBS). Data analysis covered percentages, medians, one-way analysis of variance(ANOVA) and post-hoc tests using a statistical package. Results: There were 250 participants; 117 were male, 133were female. The mean age was 13.1±0.98 for the females and 13.3±0.88 for the males. A statistically significantdifference was found in the children’s mean scores for ‘pros’ subscale on the Decisional Balance Scale (DBS)according to perceived parental attitudes (F=3.172, p=0.025). There were no statistically significant differencesin the DBS ‘cons’ subscale scores by perceived parental attitudes. Conclusions: It was determined that whileperceived parental attitudes affect children’s views on advantages of smoking, they have no effect on children’sviews on its disadvantages.
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