Use of Tobacco Consumption among Health Sciences Students in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

Abstract

Introduction: Health professional students play a critical role in tobacco control by providing services, advocating for policies and serving as role models for social change. However, health science students are, themselves consuming tobacco products. The overall objective was to find out the prevalence of the use of tobacco among health science students of Kathmandu.

Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study design was used to conduct the study. Convenient sampling was adopted for college selection in Kathmandu valley and respondent selection. Self- administered questionnaire was used to collect the information from 216 respondents. The obtained data was coded, decoded where necessary, calculated, analyzed, tabulated and interpreted by using IBM SPSS 21 statistical tool.

Results: The findings of the study shows that 51.4 percent of the respondents ever used and 44.1 percent among them still use tobacco products. Prevalence of tobacco consumption was 22.68 percent. Hukkah consumption was relatively higher than the use of other tobacco products. 64.9 percent of the respondents started using tobacco products due to curiosity. 37.8 percent of the students started using tobacco products at 18-19 years of age.

Conclusions: There was a substantial amount of tobacco use among the health science students themselves. Thus, frequent positive reinforcement of antismoking campaign focusing more on youth and focus on tobacco prevention and cessation training/counseling in health science colleges would be desirable.