Abstract

Objectives: The goal of this study is to find out the prevalence of tobacco smoking and environmental exposure with its potential influential factors in healthcare students in King Saud University, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Methods: It is an observational cross-sectional study, which has been held in King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This study included 1207 first to fifth year male and female undergraduate healthcare students in all the health colleges, randomly selected according to a list of names with a self-administrated questionnaire during February-March 2017. Descriptive analysis was performed on all data and associations between variables were tested using Chi-square test with statistical significance was set at P-value<0.05.
Results: A total of 1207 healthcare students completed the questionnaire; the prevalence of tobacco product smoking was 13.5%. This study showed variation between the colleges which was highest in the college of nursery 19.23%, and lowest in the college of pharmacy 10.11% with a significant p-value of 0.001. The age group of 18-21 years old, the prevalence was only 9.54%, while the age group of 22-25 was 19.25%, and for 26 years old students or more was 33.33%, which shows a significant difference. One of the major causes of smoking cigarettes was having stress 33.33%. The prevalence of smoking water pipe came to be 12.1% and of small-pipe (Midwakh) 5.6%. The most common cause of smoking water pipe was to enjoy its flavors 43.54% of the participants. The prevalence of students with direct home exposure was 31.48% and environment exposure such as hanging out with friends was 40.93%.
Conclusion: Tobacco consumption is a common problem among healthcare students. As it is known to contain chemicals that increase the risk of many diseases. Thus, a comprehensive program is needed to reduce or stop tobacco product.

Keywords: Healthcare students; Smoking; Prevalence; Water pipe; Small pipe; Environment exposure