Percentage of Smoking and Attitude towards Smoking Cessation Interventions Among Medical and Non-Medical Male Students of Zagazig University

Frere, Noha Osman; Abd El-Sattar, Eman Mohamed; Gomaa, Abdullah; Abdelfatah, Abdelfatah Mohamed; Abbas, Abdallah; Elqadi, Srour Younes; Abdelmonsef, Abdelmonsef Saeed; Abdelrahman, Sayed A; Abdelazeem, Abdelazeem Mohamed; Shaapan, Salah Z; Eltantawy, AbdElgleel A; Zakaria, Esraa M

doi:10.21608/ejcm.2024.275427.1290

Percentage of Smoking and Attitude towards Smoking Cessation Interventions Among Medical and Non-Medical Male Students of Zagazig University

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Family Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University, Egypt.

² Family medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt

³ Faculty of Pharmacy, Zagazig University, Zagazig 44519, Egypt

⁴ Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Zagazig University, Zagazig 44519, Egypt

10.21608/ejcm.2024.275427.1290

Abstract

Background: Worldwide, smoking is a serious threat to public health. Since university students make up a significant portion of the community, research on their smoking habits, knowledge and attitude would be interesting. The unique nature of being a medical student, who is expected to know enough, can alter the smoking percentage and attitude. So, our objectives were to compare the percentage of smoking among medical to that among non-medical students and to assess the difference in their knowledge and attitude towards smoking and smoking cessation methods.
Methods: A comparative cross-sectional study was conducted at four faculties: two faculties of the medical sector and two of the nonmedical. There were 182 students in each group. A semi-structured questionnaire was designed and participants were asked about their current smoking state, knowledge about smoking and smoking cessation, attitude towards smoking andintention to quit smoking.
Results: There was a statistically significant difference between medical and non-medical students regarding the percentage of smoking, with 24.7 percent of non-medical students being smokers versus only 9.9% of medical students. When compared to non-medical students, medical students had significantly higher knowledge about possibility of smoking cessation and nicotine replacement therapy. However, the intention to stop smoking was higher among non-medical smokers (86.8%) than among medical smokers (70.5%).
Conclusion: A higher percentage of smoking was reported among the non-medical students. This can be attributed to poorer knowledge about the available interventions to help quit smoking. This emphasizes the importance of sponsoring educational anti-smoking activities for university students.

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