20Mar 2017

SMOKING PREVALENCE AND ATTITUDE AMONG HEALTH SECTOR STUDENTS IN UMM AL-QURA UNIVERSITY, SAUDI ARABIA.

  • Dental intern, College of Dentistry, Umm Al-Qura University, Saudi Arabia.
  • Assistant Professor, Community Dentistry, College of Dentistry, Umm Al-Qura University, Saudi Arabia.
  • Assistant Professor, Community Dentistry, College of Dentistry, Mansoura University, Egypt.
  • Senior Dental Student, College of Dentistry, Makkah , Saudi Arabia.
Crossref Cited-by Linking logo
  • Abstract
  • Keywords
  • References
  • Cite This Article as
  • Corresponding Author

Background: Smoking is one of the major causes of death in the world. There is variability in the prevalence of smokers around the world. Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare the prevalence and attitude of smoking among dental, pharmacy, and nursing students in Umm Al-Qura University. Methods: The present study was a cross?sectional study, 850 students who are in the 2nd to the 6th year were participated in this study. Hard copy questionnaire were distributed among the students during lecture times. The questionnaire was composed of two sections. Section one included three demographic questions including age, college, and gender. Section two included 17 questions asked about (the reasons behind smoking habit, the role of the college to prevent smoking, the awareness of those smokers with the damaging effect of smoking, the reasons for failing to stop smoking and whether there are any members of his/her family smoke).The questionnaire take around 5 minutes to be answered. Results: A total of 700 students answered the study questionnaires (82.35% of the distributed questionnaires). Smoking prevalence was 8%, the high percent of smokers was male students(73.3%) while female students were(26.7%).The prevalence of smokers among dental students was higher than pharmacy students (11% vs 9%) and found to be zero among nursing students. Most smokers exercised in order to avoid the pressure (44.6%) and get a relaxed felling(60.8%) and the most smokers want to quit it(87.5%). A large percentage of students were dissatisfied with the role of their college awareness towards this habit (47.6%). Conclusions: The prevalence of smoking was high among dental and pharmacy students, the health colleges should do more efforts to prevent smoking among their students.


  1. Alkhier A, Emad AL, Ali AL, and Mohammed G (2012); Prevalence and pattern of smoking among patients attending primary health care service - National Guard Health Affairs, WR. Middle East Journal of Family Medicine. 10 (3): 19-23.
  2. Alnohair SF,(2011); Prevalence of Smoking and its Related Behaviors and Beliefs Among Secondary School Students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Int J Health Sci.  5(1):51-7.
  3. Alqahtani JM (2017); Knowledge, attitude and practice of tobacco smoking among health colleges' students at Najran University, Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional descriptive study. Int Dent J of student’s research. J Health spec.5 (1): 33-41.
  4. Alqarni A, Nuqali A, Al-Sharif A, and et al. (2016); trends of smoking habits among medical students at umm al-qura university, faculty of medicine.http://docslide.us/documents/trends-of-smoking-habits-among-medical-students-at-umm-al-qura-university-56cbc2ae1d01d.html.
  5. Alrsheedi M, Abdul Haleem(2012); knowledge, attitude and behavior of medical and dental students towards smoking habit in Saudi Arabian universities ‘a comparative study’. Int. Dent. Students Res., 1(1): 61-77.
  6. Bassiony MM (2009); Smoking in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Med J., 30:876-881.
  7. Hashim T(2000); Smoking habits of students in college of applied medical science, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Medical Journal, 21 (1): 76-80.
  8. Mandil A, BinSaeed A, Dabbagh R and et al. (2011); Smoking among Saudi university students: consumption patterns and risk factors. Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, 5(1): 51–57.
  9. Peidró CE, Romero OS, Sala CE(2008); Prevalence of smoking among dentists in Catalonia - Spain. Literature review of smoking cessation practices in the dental office. Med Oral Patol Oral Cir Bucal.,13(10): 671-677.
  10. Tjandra Y A. (2006); Smoking in Indonesia; Jakarta: UI Press, 24? World Health Organization (2002). The World Health Report: Reducing Risks, Promoting Healthy Life. Geneva: WHO. http://www.who.int/whr/2002/en/
  11. World Health Organization (2003).The World Health Report: Shaping the Future. Geneva: WHO.http://www.who.int/whr/2003/en/
  12. World Health Organization (2013); Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, Enforcing Bans on Tobacco Advertising, Promotion and Sponsorship. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization.
http://www.who.int/tobacco/global_report/2013/report.pdf
  1. World Health Organization (2015). Prevalence of tobacco smoking, age standardized prevalence of current tobacco smoking among persons aged 15 years and older.http://gamapserver.who.int/gho/interactive_charts/tobacco/use/atlas.html
  2. World Health Organization (2015). Tobacco, fact sheet No.339.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs339/en

[Abdullah Agilley, Khalid Aboalshamat, Wahdan Elkwatehy and Lamya Akbar. (2017); SMOKING PREVALENCE AND ATTITUDE AMONG HEALTH SECTOR STUDENTS IN UMM AL-QURA UNIVERSITY, SAUDI ARABIA. Int. J. of Adv. Res. 5 (Mar). 124-128] (ISSN 2320-5407). www.journalijar.com


Abdullah Agilley


DOI:


Article DOI: 10.21474/IJAR01/3495      
DOI URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.21474/IJAR01/3495