Abstract

One of the main target groups for anti-smoking campaigns are university students. It is necessary to identify the target group for a successful anti-smoking campaign. In this context, it was planned to investigate the attitudes towards smoking and level of knowledge among students, who were enrolled at Harran University, and organize an anti-smoking campaign program according to the result of this investigation. The attitudes towards smoking of 780 students, who were enrolled at Harran University in 2002-2003, their knowledge about diseases related to smoking, and opinions about the laws on controlling smoking were evaluated by a questionnaire. Among these students 557 were male and 223 were female and the mean age of the group was 20.3±3.6. Of the students, 81.8% had tried smoking at least once throughout their lifetime, 43.3% were everyday smokers and 22.7% were smoking occasionally. The mean age for attempting to smoke was 14.5±2.7. The prevalence of smoking among the male students (48.8%) was higher than among the female students (29.6%) (p<0.0001). Smoking habits of the students were not related with the educational status of their parents (p>0.05). There was not a statistically significant relation between economical status of the family and smoking (p>0.05). A correlation was observed between smoking habits of the students and of their fathers and of the brothers (p<0.0001). As a result, we found in our study, that the main cause of smoking in youngsters is influence of family and friends.