Prevalence of smoking and its related factors among students of Kashan university of medical sciences

Smoking is one of the biggest public health problems in the world, which can increase the overall burden of disease in the world. Since understanding the factors related to smoking among medical students is considered an important and necessary factor for formulating and explaining educational intervention programs, therefore, this study was conducted determine the prevalence of smoking among students of Kashan University of Medical Sciences and the factors related to it.

This cross-sectional study was conducted on 681 students of Kashan University of Medical Sciences in the first semester of 2018 by simple random sampling. Smoking in individuals, family, close friends, and other demographic characteristics was measured using a questionnaire with good reliability and multiple logistic regression was used for statistical analysis.

The average age of the participants in this study (313 male and 368 female students) was 25 ±4.2 years old. The prevalence of smoking among students was 9.4% (16.7% in boys and 3.35% in girls). Also, smoking had a significant relationship with the desire to smoke, living in a dormitory, having close friends who smoke, and family members with a history of smoking (p<0.05).

The academic drop of students who smoke is significantly higher than other students. Since this study has shown the factors related to smoking in students, the use of these findings can be a basis for the prevention of smoking and the development of preventive interventions.