Attitude of Future Doctors Towards Smoking: Are They Really Propagating Ideal Lifestyles?

We conducted this study to assess the attitude and practices of medical students towards tobacco smoking whilst knowing its hazards. This cross-sectional study was conducted by inviting students to complete an online anonymous questionnaire to ensure confidential, valid responses from January 2020 to March 2020. All of the MBBS students, from first year to final year, who were studying in that time period were included in this study. All statistical analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 25.0. (Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.). Of the 1700 students, 385 students aged 17 to 26 years (mean age, 21 years) participated in this study. The prevalence of smoking among students was 23.1%. Smoking was significantly related to older age (p=0.000). Total of 137 (35.58%) students were passive smokers whereas 51 (13.24%) students were passive smokers in addition to being active smokers (P=0.000). The main motives for starting smoking were curiosity (53.93%), peer pressure (41.60%), and increased concentration (38.20%). Most of the students had knowledge of the prominent hazards of tobacco smoking like chronic lung diseases (95.06%), cancer in general (94.02%), and cardiovascular diseases (91.16%) but insufficient knowledge on other hazards. Educational lessons about smoking hazards (61.8%), prevention of smoking at universities, schools, and hospitals (59.0%), and increasing taxes on cigarettes (57.1%) were some suggestions put forward by students to prevent smoking. Smoking cigarettes remains a major threat among medical students. Although the vast majority of students showed a better attitude towards cigarette smoking prevention, they still lack sufficient knowledge about smoking hazards.