The problem of smoking among medical students

Objective. To study the smoking status of medical university students.

Material and methods. The study involved 483 pediatric students and 503 medical students. Study participants filled out a questionnaire containing 19 questions about smoking with the ability to select an answer from the proposed options. The analysis of the obtained data was carried out using the IBM SPSS Statistics 26.0 program.

Results. There were more smokers among students of the Faculty of Medicine than among students of the Faculty of Pediatrics. At the beginning of training, the number of non-smoking students was 4 times higher than the number of smokers, but by the end of training the number of smokers reached 50%. Among the reasons for starting smoking, curiosity prevailed. 38.9% of students attempted to quit smoking, and in the vast majority of cases without results. Respondents named the anti-stress effect of smoking as the main reason for the failure of the attempt. Despite a short history of smoking, 31% of respondents developed a cough, which they associated with smoking. Among the non-smokers, the main motivating reasons for quitting smoking were harm to health and the high cost of cigarettes. At the same time, 45.2% of non-smoking students have a negative attitude towards smokers.

Conclusion. The data obtained justify the need for more active educational measures and promotion of a healthy lifestyle among medical students.