Smoking and well-being: A correlation study on general health, self-esteem, and life satisfaction in young adults

This correlation study investigates the relationship between general health, self-esteem, and life satisfaction among young smokers and non-smokers using simple random sampling from different educational colleges and institutes. The sample consists of 207 college students, with 97 identified as smokers, utilizing standardized measures such as the Sheet for Personal Information, General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12) (Goldberg and Williams, 1978), Self-Esteem Inventory (SEI) (Coopersmith, 1967), and Life Satisfaction Scale (LSS) (Alam and Srivastava, 2001) to assess the aforementioned variables. Inter-correlation was utilized as the method of analysis.The findings of this research reveal that general health problems are negatively associated with a higher level of self-esteem among non-smokers, indicating that lower general health corresponds to higher self-esteem. Home parents' self-esteem is positively related to personal satisfaction among non-smokers. Self-esteem is negatively related to general health problems among smokers. Smokers with higher general health problems also report higher economic and marital satisfactions but lower levels of social satisfaction. Social self-peers' esteem is positively associated with health, personal, and social satisfactions among smokers. Economic satisfaction is negatively related to home parents' self-esteem and school/college academic self-esteem among smokers. Marital satisfaction is positively associated with home parents' self-esteem and total self-esteem. Smokers with higher levels of self-esteem also tend to report greater social satisfaction.