Prevalence of Smoking among Students of Al-Safwa University College, Iraq

Background: Tobacco smoking is a common harmful habit distributed all over the world and leads to a deleterious health consequences. Smoking results in high morbidity and mortality through its effects on different body systems. Objective: To find out the extent of distribution of smoking among university students. Methods: A questionnaire was designed to collect the required data from the available sample of students. The questions cards were distributed to the students on the first of December, 2015, and lasted for three weeks. Then, the data were assorted and analyzed for prevalence. Results: The total number of students who participated in the study was 504. Three hundred fourteen (314, 62.3%) of the participants were males, whereas the females were 190 (37.7%). The total number of smokers was 184 (36.5% of the participants). Male smokers were 172 (93.5%) with a prevalence rate of 34.0%. On the other hand, the female smokers were only 12 students (6.5%) with a prevalence rate of 2.4%. Conclusion: The study shows that smoking habit is common among university students (36.5%) in spite of their awareness of the tobacco smoking health hazards. The prevalence rate was high in males (34.0%) compared with low figures for females (2.4%).