Influence of Life Patterns and Coping with Stress on Teacher Students' Tobacco Purchasing Behavior in Bangkok

Teacher students' tobacco-purchasing behaviors have been a problem among teacher students in Thailand. Life patterns and coping with stress levels have been perceived as the main contributors to these behaviors. Life pattern is based on the concepts of the lifestyles of a person. People tend to share similar lifestyle orientations when they are in similar social groups or have similar interests. This includes teachers students and their learning environment. Additionally, coping with stress is referred to as teacher students' coping skills when they feel pressure in life. Therefore, this research article aimed to study how life patterns and coping with stress influence teacher students' tobacco-purchasing behavior in Bangkok. The research questionnaire was a five-level Likert scale questionnaire. Data was collected through a survey with 900 teacher students from three universities in Bangkok. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and Multiple Linear Regression by Enter technique. The data analysis indicated that life pattern positively influences the tobacco-purchasing behavior of teacher students in the Bangkok area with a coefficient of influence at 0.470 with significant at 0.01 level (P-Value <0.001); while coping with stress had a negative influence over the purchasing behavior with a coefficient of influence at -0.104 with statistical significant at 0.01 level (P-Value <0.001). This suggested that when coping with stress increases by 1 unit, the level of tobacco purchasing behavior decreases by 0.104 units. The two variables were able to predict tobacco-purchasing behavior at 20.5 percent.