Smoking Habit among College Students

Smoking is one of the leading causes of preventable diseases and deaths in the world. In India due to smoking and use of smokeless tobacco one million deaths occurs every year. Therefore this cross sectional study was conducted in Nagpur region to find out the rate of prevalence of cigarette smoking in college students. A total of 600 students have been selected for this study from four education faculties and from each faculty 150 students have selected. However response rate of participants was 93%. Data collection was carried out using a pre-coded structured questionnaire. The questionnaire included Socio-demographic questions, questions on family & friend smoking history, questions on respondents smoking history & practices. In this investigation average prevalence estimated was 16.6%, however engineering students were found be dominant smokers with 22.9% prevalence rate and arts faculty students were found to have lowest prevalence rate (11.5%). With respect to financial status, majority of students were represents to lower income group (76.1%).