Tobacco and areca nut use among school children has become a serious problem in developing countries. Although the prevalence of potentially malignant disorder and malignancy are common, literature about awareness of tobacco and areca nut use is scanty. Most of these conditions can be prevented if educated at early age. But there are very few
publications with the interventions at school levels. The purpose of this
paper is to systemically review the studies published to know the prevalence of areca nut and tobacco use in school children. 227 articles were identified through electronic database (Pub Med/Medline-65, SCOPUS-35, Google Scholar-137) and 31 by manual searching, and 198 articles remained after duplicates removal. Around 165 articles excluded after thorough review of titles and abstracts, and 33 full text articles were assessed for eligibility. 16 full text articles were excluded because they were review articles, studies in combination with other mode of intervention, adult population, outcome not specified. Finally 17 studies were selected that met the inclusion criteria. Paucity of literature regarding awareness about areca nut necessities the future research to control and prevent its habit. The validated, age specific, condition specific awareness instrument for both
tobacco and areca nut is a need of an hour.
Impact Factor
2022: 6.012
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