The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: University students completed a survey about their attitudes towards smoking and knowledge about the dangers of smoking.

Methods: The questionnaire was designed according to WHO standards. It consisted 13 items: 4 that assessed knowledge about the health consequences of smoking; 1 about tobacco products other than cigarettes; 1 about the dangers of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke; 6 that related to illnesses and quitting, 1 about the students' behavior towards the legislation. In Turkey, it is illegal to use tobacco products in indoors, or advertise these products, and to sell or supply tobacco youths younger than 18. Only current smokers' answers were evaluated in this study.

Results: A total of 3156 students (mean age, 20.1 + 2.0 years; 59.4% women) participated in the study. Of these, 966 (30.6%) were current smokers. The frequency of current tobacco use was significantly higher among the male students, p<0.05). The answers for the questions related to smoking legislation revealed that 59.8% to 80.6% of the smokers agreed with the specifies of the tobacco control legislation. 86% of the smokers knew the term of passive smoking. The proportion of smokers who were considering quitting was lower than the proportion that were not. 65% of the smokers had at least one respiratory symptom and thought that these were related to smoking. The smokers were most aware of the link between smoking and many systems' diseases, except for only bladder cancer. This survey indicates that interventions stronger than education about the dangers of this habit are needed to encourage quitting.