Prevalence of Smoking in Medical Students at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ostrava

Abstract

The paper deals with smoking among doctors and medical personnel and the opinions of medical students regarding this problem in terms of their future intervention as doctors in helping their patients to stop smoking. A questionnaire survey among 255 medical students in the 1st to 4th years of study was performed at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ostrava using the standardised to GHPSS international study questionnaire. Consumption of cigarettes water pipes, cigars and snuff was evaluated, as well as opinions on current anti smoking policy and the specific role of doctors in prevention of smoking. Results showed that 25% of students are smokers with statistically significant differences among individual years of study. Students in the first two yars of study used tobacco product more often than the highest years. The majority of students are aware of the fact that smoking status should be included in patient anamnesis.