Knowledge and Attitude towards Smoking among Fayoum University Students

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Public Health & Community Medicine; Faculty of Medicine; Fayoum University, Al Fayoum, Egypt

2 Department of Chest Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, Fayoum University, Al Fayoum, Egypt

3 Department of Public Health & Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut Universit, Assiut, Egypt

Abstract

Background: Smoking is a behavioral cause of premature morbidity and mortality, resulting in approximately four million persons dying of smoking-related diseases annually worldwide. Objective: This study aims to investigate the extent of smoking habit, knowledge toward smoking among Fayoum University students. Methods: A cross sectional analytical study was conducted in Fayoum University during the academic year 2010. A total of 804 students were selected by using randomized multi-stage sampling using self-administered questionnaire for data collection. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 16. Results: The respondents age ranged from 18 to 26 years 20.36 ± (1.21) years. The males were 51% (n=410) and females were 49% (n=394). The prevalence of smoking among students was 13.4%. a large percentage of the smokers 82.4% used cigarettes while 8.3% smoked water pipe.  Regarding knowledge about smoking related diseases, 97.3% of the students knew that smoking causes diseases; but only 5.6% of the sample had good/and satisfactory knowledge score about the causal role of tobacco in the development of specific diseases, and 66.7% of smoker students want to quit with a higher intention of for older group. Conclusion: Smoking is prevalent among the university students and their knowledge about the harmful effects of smoking is generally superficial. Definite counseling programs are greatly needed to help students quit smoking.

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