مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - Evaluation of opinions and attitudes of cigarette use in police vocational high school students

Abstract :

Aim: Police profession is located in occupational risk groups in terms of smoking consumption. The aim of this study is to investigate smoking habits and opinions and attitudes of cigarette use in police vocational high school students. Materials and Methods: Simple random sample method was utilized in the research. The questionnaire was applied to 294 out of 810 students in their classrooms who were first and second year students. In this study, 10-question survey form consisted of cigarette use, reasons for smoking and cessation of smoking, and smoking bans. Results: Current smokers were found as 33.7% of participants. Age to start smoking was between 7 and 19, the mean use of cigarette packs per week was 4.4±2.8. A significant difference was found between smokers and non-smokers in terms of reasons for smoking and necessity to take professional support for smoking cessation (p .05). There was no significant difference between two groups about reasons for cessation of smoking. Conclusion: In this study, the smoking prevalence (33.7%) in the police vocational high school students was found similar to other university students. It was observed that smoking rates were decreased when compared with studies in the literature. The results show that there are significant differences between smoking and non-smoking groups in terms of opinions about cigarette use