Knowledge, practice, and attitude of smoking among male medical students in king abdul-aziz university in jeddah, saudi arabia2016

Background: Usually smokers start smoking during teen ages or early adulthood. It will not be possible to reduce tobacco related deaths unless adult smokers are encouraged to prevent it at early ages, particularly future health professionals who could have a main role through the health care system to motivate and advise smokers to quit.
Objectives: To assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of male medical students at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah regarding smoking and its cessation.
Subjects and Methods: Quantitative cross sectional study design was carried out included a representative sample of male medical students at King Abdul-Aziz university, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (Second grade to Sixth grade). Stratified random sampling technique with proportional allocation was adopted to select students. Data were collected using an English self-administered questionnaire adopted from the Global Tobacco Survey (GTS). It included questions about demographic characteristics of the participants, general knowledge of the consequences of smoking, attitude towards smoking and its cessation and detailed practice of smoking. Positive attitude was described among most of the participants (74.6%) with no significant difference according to age or academic level.
Results: The study included 228 medical students. More than one third of them (39%) aged below 22 years. Overall, knowledge of medical students regarding smoking consequences was described as “good” among 61% of the students and “poor” among the remaining 39%.Good knowledge regarding smoking consequences increased steadily with the increasing in academic level (from 42.9% among 2nd year students to 79.2% among 6th year students), p=0.006.Prevalence of current smoking among medical students was 25.1% whereas that of ex smoking was 18.8%. The main reasons for starting smoking among current smokers were having smoker friends (82.4%), stress (71.2%), family smoking (62.7%) and curiosity (50%). Health concerns (45.9%), and religious believes (20.2%) were the most frequent factors influenced non-smokers to not smoke
Conclusion: Smoking is highly prevalent among male medical students at College of Medicine, King Abdul-Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The main reasons for starting smoking among current smokers were having smoker friends, stress, family smoking and curiosity.