Smoking and associated factors among dental students

Abstract

The objective of this research was to determine the prevalence and factors associated with smoking among dentistry students of the State University of Paraíba (BR). A cross sectional exploratory study was accomplished by means of a semi-structured questionnaire with 141 students. The exact Fisher and Chi-square statistical tests were used (5% of significance level). The prevalence of smoking among them was 7.1%, where the influence of friends was the most frequent reason to commence such habit (18.9%). It was noticed that the habit began early and that the consumption reported was between 4 and 20 cigarettes a day. Most students had some smoking relative (82.8%), where the father was the most cited (49.5%). 98.6% of the interviewed students were aware about the consequences of smoking, with cancer being the most mentioned consequence (94.2%). 87.4% of the interviewed students stated that they provide information to their patients on the risks of smoking. The only variables that presented an association with smoking were alcoholic beverage consumption and religion practice (p < 0.05). The knowledge of the prevalence of smoking is needed for implementing adequate institutional programs to help the reduction of smokers, especially among health professionals, who were supposed to be the model to our society.