Knowledge on smoking/vaping, attitude towards smoking behavior, and practice of smoking prevention and cessation among nursing students.

Abstract

Cigarette smoking is a major global public health concern with over 8 million premature deaths from smoking each year. As young adults, university students are more likely to continue smoking if they initiate the smoking activity during their teenage years which can causes serious health issues like nicotine addiction, lung damage, and cardiovascular disease. Evidence highlighted that smoking rates among nursing students quite high, despite the role's potential of providing smoking cessation education to the patient and community. Objective: Thus this study aims to determine the smoking prevalence among nursing students, their knowledge, attitude, and practice towards smoking. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using a validated self-administered questionnaire among nursing students at International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). Results: A total of 270 IIUM nursing students have participated in the survey. The median age of the participants was 21-23 years; 31.9% of them were males and 68.1% were females. The percentage of active smokers and ex-smokers was 10.0%, and 4.8%, respectively. About 83.8% of the respondents had a good knowledge about smoking and its ‘risk factors, 71.8% of them had a positive attitude towards disagreement on smoking behaviour, and the majority of the students (98.5%) had a good practice on smoking prevention and cessation. Conclusion: Smoking prevalence among nursing students in IIUM is quite low and their knowledge, attitude and practice emphasizes the effectiveness of health promotion on smoking cessation exposure during their undergraduate study program. Thus, future study should also investigate on to what extent the nursing students had integrate the smoking cessation education into clinical practice or community as preparation for their future healthcare role.