Prevalence of Nicotine Dependency among Dental and Medical Under Gradaute Students of Eastern India

Introduction- The prevalence of nicotine and its various forms in the lives of medical and dental health professionals is not untouched. Objective- To assess the level of nicotine dependency among the Medical and Dental undergraduate students. Methodology- A cross sectional questionnaire survey was conducted among the undergraduate Dental and Medical students of Bihar and Jharkhand states of Eastern India. Nicotine dependency was assessed using the Fragerstorms Test for Nicotine dependence (FTND) for smoking and Fragerstorms Test for Nicotine dependence on smokeless tobacco (FTND-ST) and a preformed questionnaire was used to get information on demographic details of students. Data was analyzed using SPSS software version 17.0. Results- A total of 2000 students participated in the study and among them, 1000 students were Medical students and remaining 1000 were dental students. Out of the total sample size about 57 % of them agreed to have been using nicotine products the students accepted of nicotine dependency of nicotine or some sort of nicotine product. The Chi-square test and a two tailed test was used to test the significant difference in level of nicotine dependency. Our study found that Exact percentage and number medical and dental students were dependent on some form of nicotine