A Survey on Smoking Status and Knowledge regarding the Consequences of Smoking among the people of Dhaka City

Abstract

Tobacco smoking is a global epidemic. Tobacco and its products have dangerous harmful effects to human body. This study was aimed to get a view of smoking status and knowledge regarding the consequences of smoking among the general population of Dhaka city. Using a structured questionnaire total 315 respondents were interviewed, most of them (65.40%) were between the ages of 21-30 years and were male (67.62%). Majority of the respondents were students (50.47%) and completed Higher Secondary Certificate (40.95%). About 46.98% people smoked cigarette (37.14%) current smoker and 9.84% former smoker) and 90.54% of the smokers were male. Both smokers and nonsmokers had good knowledge about the association of smoking with lung cancer (86.35%), oral cancer (73.33%) and stroke (69.52%), but they had poor knowledge about hearing loss, impotency and tuberculosis. Smoking in the public places were prevalent (52%) although majority (70.79%) knew that smoking can’t be done in public places. Respondents were found to smoke mainly for relaxation (23.65%), relieving boredom (16.89%) or to enjoy the pleasant events (15.54%). The main reasons for quitting smoking among the former smokers were harmful effects on health (51.61%) and influence of family members (19.35%). Majority (38.71%) of them quit smoking suddenly while 35.48% gradually decreased the number of cigarettes. Most of the respondents showed positive attitude towards the measures for reducing smoking. Thus, it can be said that, necessary steps should be taken immediately to increase awareness about health impacts and to prevent the availability of tobacco products in Bangladesh.