Saad ALGhanem
Majmaah University, Saudi Arabia
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Primary Health Care
Background: Smoking is one of the world�s leading preventable causes of premature death, disease and disability. Although many of the adverse health effects of tobacco occur later in life, smoking has health implications for young people and is associated with other high-risk behaviours among young people including abuse of other drugs. Objective: The main objective of the current study was to determine smoking prevalence among male students at Majmaah University, Saudi Arabia. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted at Majmaah University in the central area of Saudi Arabia. The study population was 23,424 male students in the University, who were enrolled in 13 different colleges. Three colleges were selected by simple random allocation; those were College of Applied Science, Education and College of Business and Administration. The sample size was 990 students, who currently registered themselves in the university. A semi structured questionnaire was used in data collection. Analysis was performed by SPSS. Results: The prevalence of smokers among male students at Majmaah University was 30.4%. Most of tobacco smokers (70.7%) use cigarette and most of them (41.3%) consume 10 to 20 cigarettes per day. The majority of smokers started smoking at the secondary school level. The results showed that 39% of the students tried quitting once or twice while 28.25 never tried quitting. Most of the students (73.45) consume less than 500 SR in smoking every month. Conclusion: We found that the prevalence of smoking among male students at Majmaah University is high. Most of the students are medium smokers and initiated smoking at secondary school level. Most of the students tried to quit smoking; this may be a base for cessation programs, raising awareness and reinforcing non-smoking attitudes in the schools and universities.
Saad ALGhanem is a Medical student at College of Medicine, Majmaah University, Saudi Arabia.
Email: saad.ghaneem@gmail.com
