A study on habits of tobacco use among medical and non-medical students of Kolkata

Abstract

Background:Age-old practice “using tobacco” is a well known major global concern as it victimizes all its lovers by a host of chronic noncommunicable diseases including cancer; all develop very slowly and silently, and can cause premature death.Objectives:To assess the pattern of tobacco use among the medical and nonmedical college students.Materials and Methods:A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out in Kolkata collecting anonymous data from 515 medical and 349 nonmedical college students of two medical and two general colleges, selected randomly.Result:Overall prevalence of tobacco use (18.3% vs 43.6%) and smoking (14.9% vs 40.7%) were significantly less in medical subjects, both across the sex and years of study. Lower rate of tobacco adoption at college level, higher quitting rate, correct knowledge regarding uselessness of filter attached with cigarette, and ill-effects of tobacco consumption were observed among medical participants. More nonmedical subjects were increasingly smoking compared to medical students. Filter-tipped cigarette was the top choice, and smoking was more prevalent mode of use among the nonmedical participants, most (62.3%) of whom were mild users. Curiosity was the top influencing factor for the initiation of tobacco use and two-third users wanted to quit.Conclusion:Although the mortal habits was comparatively less among medical students, the medical environment seemed to fail to curb the dreadful practice totally. Thereby it can be recommended that active behavior-changing communication is required for all sections of the society to tear out the social root of the problem instead of unimpressive vague health warnings in vogue.

The Prevalence of Illicit Substance Use Among Students of Medical Sciences in Tehran: Results from Four Repeated Surveys from 2006 to 2009

“…In other words, the lifetime prevalence of cigarette use among female students was almost equal to the prevalence of daily cigarette use among male students. This was observed in the previously conducted studies in Iran as well as those conducted in other countries (4,5,28). For example, the overall prevalence of daily cigarette use was 7% among students of dentistry, while the gender- specific rates were 3% and 12% for female and male students, respectively (28).…”

“…Overall, studies have indicated a higher prevalence of cigarette smoking among students of non-medical sciences. For example, Chaterjee et al reported that the last week prevalence of cigarette smoking in Kolkata (5), India, was 14.9% and 40.7% among students of medical and non-medical sciences, respectively. Another study conducted in Greece indicated corresponding values of 35.3% and 50.2% for the prevalence of current cigarette smoking (daily or occasional) (4).…”

“…This population group is highly susceptible to smoking, due mainly to different types of stressors such as burden of educational and uncertainty of future work, on one hand, and the pressure from friends combined with ease of access, on the other hand. Although the prevalence of cigarette smoking has been reported to be lower among the students of the medical sciences compared to non-medical majors, these rates were still high; taking into consideration the fact that they will be in charge of delivering health services to the society, their smoking can negatively impact the attitudes towards this habit (4,5). …”

Perceived benefits and health risks of cigarette smoking among young adults: insights from a cross-sectional study

“…Further, this study showed that the management students were at greater risk of becoming smokers than the medical students. Several studies including in Nepal demonstrated that the smoking prevalence was higher among non-medical college students than the medical students [ 6 , 21 , 23 ]. A similar study in India also showed that exposure rate of tobacco was significantly higher among non-medical groups than medical groups (31 % vs. 10 %) [ 23 ].…”

Habits of tobacco use among the medical and non-medical students of Kolkata

“…[1] Comparison of medical students with nonmedical ones might be perfect in many conditions, but when there is a question of medical knowledge, the comparison of health education between these groups becomes mismatched. Medical students are enriched with medical knowledge, therefore they are all aware of health-related issues in detail, if not in depth.…”