Cigarette Smoking and Oral Health among healthcare students
Date
2009-04Author
Ogwell, AEO.
Macigo Francis G.
Dimba, E.
Komu, P.
Type
ArticleLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Background: The knowledge, attitudes and practices of cigarette smoking and health risks among health workers has been found to be predictive of their efficiency as agents for tobacco cessation campaigns.
O/Jjective: To describe the knowledge, attitudes and practices of cigarette smoking and oral health risks among hcalthcare professional students.
Design: A cross sectional multi-level study.
Setting: College of Health Sciences, University of Nairobi. Subjects: Two hundred and eighty one students,
Results: Thirty four (12.1 'Yr,) of the students were current smokers, 174 (61.95%) had never smoked, while 73 (26%) were former smokers. Seventy nine point four per cent of the current smokers were males and 20.6% were females. Pharmacy students had the highest smoking' prevalence at 11 (32.4%), while dental and nursing students had the lowest percentages of current smokers. Differences observed in smoking status of students in the constituent schools of the College of Health Sciences were statistically significant (p = 0.008). Apart from knowledge levels on the association between tobacco consumption and lung cancer (p = 0.142), there were statistically significant differences in the awareness of the severe oral and systemic effects of smoking amongst the four student groups.
Conclusions: There is a need for harmonisation of teaching of oral and systemic effects of smoking so as to impact on the smoking habits and effectiveness of hcalthcare professional students as agents of smoking cessation programmes
URI
http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/10498http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20085002
http://www.ajol.info/index.php/eamj/article/view/46948
Citation
East African medical journalPublisher
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Oral Pathology and Oral Medicine, School of Dental Sciences, University
Description
Cigarette smoking and oral health among healthcare students
Collections
- Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) [10387]