Habits: BA students more likely to be smokers

Smoking was more common among Bachelor’s than Master’s degree students, while none of the women indicated they smoked.

KARACHI:

Smoking is more common in Bachelor’s degree students than those at the Master’s level, a study has revealed at the Centre for Physical Education and Sports Science at the University of Sindh, Jamshoro.

Yasmeen Iqbal, Soniha Aslam and Aslam Ghouri’s results were published in the African Journal for Physical Health Education, Recreation and Dance.

The objective of their study was to determine the knowledge, attitude, prevalence and factors leading to smoking among the students.

A total of 148 (128 men and 20 women) were randomly selected. A self-administered questionnaire was used to elicit information on demographics, smoking habits, attitude towards public action against smoking and knowledge of health hazards.

Smoking was more common among Bachelor’s (18 students) than Master’s degree students (4). There were 22 smokers, but most of them were occasional smokers (13). All of the women indicated that they never smoked. The student ages ranged from 18 to 35 years.

Sixteen students started smoking between ages 10 and 20 years. Out of 22 smokers, only five were heavy smokers (over 20 cigarettes a day). The most favoured smoking tool was filter-tipped cigarettes (12 students). The most common reason for smoking was peer pressure (12). A majority of students (53) who do not smoke believed that it was a useless habit.

Twelve smokers and 112 non-smokers favoured banning smoking advertisements in the media. Fourteen smokers and all non-smokers favored banning smoking in public places.

Both smokers (91%) and non-smokers (98%) had good knowledge of health hazards associated with smoking and passive smoking.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 29^th, 2011.