The Prevalence of and Factors Associated with Current Smoking among College of Health Sciences Students, Mekelle University in Northern Ethiopia

Abstract

BackgroundTobacco smoking is one of the greatest causes of preventable morbidity and mortality globally, and is responsible for many causes of untimely deaths. This survey was aimed to determine prevalence and factors associated with current smoking among the students of College of Health Sciences, Mekelle University, Ethiopia.MethodsA cross-sectional study was employed using a structured self-administered questionnaire among College of Health Sciences students in March 2013. A stratified random sampling method was employed to select study participants. Data were entered and analysed using of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0.ResultsOf the 193 students, 57 (29.5%) of the students were current smokers. Most of the current smokers (89.4%) smoked between 1–10 sticks of cigarette per day. The two main reasons cited for smoking cigarettes were peer pressure (43.9%) and to relieve stress (36.8%). Being female (adjusted OR [AOR] = 0.49; 95% CI: 0.25, 0.95) and Tigre by ethnicity (AOR = 0.32; 95% CI: 0.14, 0.74) were significantly less associated with current smoking. On the other hand, being second year students (AOR = 3.84; 95% CI: 1.41, 10.46), khat chewing (AOR = 8.36; 95% CI: 2.60, 26.85) and taking illicit drugs (AOR = 10.59; 95% CI: 2.77, 40.51) were positively associated with current smoking cigarettes.ConclusionsThe current smoking prevalence among students in College of Health Sciences, Mekelle University is high and therefore, effective smoking prevention and cessation intervention programs are required to reduce smoking among university students.

Prevalence of Cigarette Smoking and Its Associated Risk Factors among Students of Hawassa University, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, 2016

“…This finding is consistent with study in Mekelle University [11,14,24]. Chewing Khat is sometimes considered as selfmedication used to regulate moods, manage stress and to cope up with the strains of material deprivation among the students [29,30].…”

“…This result was supported with previous study [11,20]. This may be due to students in third and fourth year were at middle of their campus life in which they usually become desperate and get into depression so that they may tend to use cigarettes to get relieved from the depression mood.…”

“…An increasing tendency is predictable to occur among university students and this could be related to mitigation of stress, life problems, peer pressure, social acceptance, class history of smoking, lower educational level of parents, the desire to attain high personality profile, age of students, year of study, attitude towards smoking, knowledge of health effect of smoking, gender, parental smoking and pocket money, Khat use and alcohol use disorders [11][12][13][14].…”

Cigarette smoking among Jimma University Teaching and referral hospital outpatients attending services at psychiatry clinic Southwest, Ethiopia

“…The finding is in line with a study conducted in Harar and Mekelle, Ethiopia (Reda et al, 2012; Eticha and Kidane, 2014). The odds of current cigarette smoking by the respondents with khat use were 3 times higher as compared to those who do not use khat [AOR: 2.65, 95% CI: (1.07, 6.54)] which is consistent with the study finding in Hawassa and Mekelle, Ethiopia (Kassa and Deyno, 2014;Eticha and Kidane, 2014).…”

“…However, the prevalence is higher as compared to that reported in studies carried out among the students of Aksum University (Gebreslassie et al, 2013), Hawassa University in Ethiopia (Kassa and Deyno, 2014) and in school adolescents in Nigeria (Raji et al, 2013) which revealed 9.3, 7.5 and 8.3% prevalence respectively. These findings were significantly lower than a similar study done in Australia, Timor and Mekelle, in which the current prevalence were 66.6, 40.3 and 29.5% respectively (Cooper et al, 2012;Siziya et al, 2008;Eticha and Kidane, 2014). Our findings were also lower than a similar study done in Spain, Tanzania and Yemen where the prevalence rate of cigarette smoking was 54.54, 38.6 and 24.3% respectively (Bobes et al, 2010;Hauli et al, 2011;Abbas et al, 2014).…”