Socio-demographic factors associated with smoking habits among university students in Belgrade, Serbia
Article Category: Original scientific article
Published Online: Jan 21, 2019
Page range: 11 - 20
Received: Apr 26, 2018
Accepted: Nov 26, 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/sjph-2019-0002
Keywords
© 2019 National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
Background
Smoking rates in Serbian adults are among the highest in Europe. The objective of this study is to assess the prevalence of smoking and smoking-related behaviours of Belgrade University students depending on their sociodemographic characteristics and faculty group.
Methods
A cross-sectional study was carried out among 2,608 Belgrade University students (59.6% female) in 2015. A self-administered questionnaire was applied to the opportunity sample to collect the data describing students’ smoking habits and attitudes across all 30 faculties of the university.
Results
30.5% of students reported smoking: 26.4% of medical, and 31.1% of non-medical ones. Smoking rate among female students was 31.2% vs. 29.5% among males. Age (p=0.001), relationship (<0.001) and employment status (p=0.002) had statistically significant influence on smoking status, while the differences in smoking status between genders (p=0.141) and medical and non-medical group of students (p=0.066) were not statistically significant. The highest percentage of students started smoking during high school (66.2%). As the most common reason to start smoking, respondents cited peer influence (36.5%). 44.3% of students who smoked unsuccessfully tried to quit smoking.
Conclusion
To combat high smoking prevalence among a younger population, the formal education of students about the adverse impacts of smoking should be integrated in all active anti-smoking programs. Medical students, as future healthcare professionals, can play an important role in smoking rates reduction among both younger and general populations, if properly trained and educated about smoking prevention and cessation techniques.