Prevalence and Factors Associated with Smoking among Students and Staff in

Universiti Putra Malaysia

Rampal L, Numan S, Sherina MS, Yunus MA, Azhar MZ

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INTRODUCTION

THE GLOBAL IMPACT OF SMOKING ON HEALTH

• Smoking is the major preventable cause of disease in the world.

• About 80 percent of these people live in low and middle-income countries.

• Tobacco used– 1.3 billion smokers (World Bank, 2003)

• Tobacco kills– 4 million deaths per year (CDC, 2000)

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Every day , THOUSANDS of young people around the world are trying their first cigarette and 80,000 – 100,000 are becoming regular smokers often precipitating a lifetime of addiction and untimely death.

Fig 13:“Youth should be inculcated in a “Calture without Tobacco”- Chairman ASHIQSW 2000

BY THE YEAR 2020• WHO estimated that if the current worldwide

smoking patterns were to persist then 10 million deaths will occur per year from tobacco consumption by 2020.

• Tobacco will become the leading cause of death and disability thus causing more deaths world-wide than HIV, TB, maternal mortality, MVA, suicide and homicide (WHO, 1999)

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World No Tobacco Day Geneva, 30 May 2006

"Tobacco: deadly in any form or disguise," focusing on the fact that all tobacco products are addictive, harmful and can cause death, regardless of the form, packaging, or name under which they are presented to the public”.

1996 2004 2006NHMS2 UPM NHMS3(>18 yrs) (>18 yrs) (>18 yrs)

Overall 24.8% 23.2% 21.5%Male 49.2% 47.2 46.4%

Female 3.5% 2.7% 1.6%Malay 27.9% 28.9 % 24%

Chinese 19.2% 18.7% 16.2%Indian 16.2% 16.8% 13.7%Others 32.4% 22.5% 23.8%

Prevalence of Smoking among Malaysians

Estimated: ~ 3 million smokers in Malaysia (2006)

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of this study are:to determine the prevalence and factors associated with smoking among the students and staff of UPM.

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MATERIALS AND METHODS

MATERIALS AND METHODS• Study Location

– This study was carried out in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM).

• Study Design – A cross-sectional study design was used in this study.

• Sample Frame – The entire list of students and staff of UPM served as sampling

frame

• Sampling Method– Multistage stratified random sampling methods was used

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MATERIALS AND METHODS• Consent and Ethics Approval

– The Medical Research Ethics Committee – Approval also obtained from the Dean’s office of the

respective faculties and Institute– Written consent was taken from respondents

• Pre Testing of Questionnaire– content validity – Reliability test was done – Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient ranged from 0.6492

to 0.8562

• Inclusion CriteriaStudents: who were enrolled for study Staff: who were appointed permanently or on contract basis

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MATERIALS AND METHODS• Data Collection - 5th July 2004 – 27th August 2004

– Structured pre tested questionnaires

• Data Analysis– Data were analyzed using Statistical Package of Social

Sciences (SPSS) 12.0– Chi-square test to study the relationship – t-test and ANOVA were used to compare means

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DEFINITIONS

Ever Smoker– Who smoked 100 or more cigarettes in his/her

lifetime

1. Current Smoker• Who smoked 100 or more cigarettes in his/her lifetime

and was still smoking at time of interview

2. Former Smoker• Who smoked 100 or more cigarettes in his/her lifetime

but has stopped smoking

Never Smoker– Who never smoked or smoked less than 100

cigarettes in his/her lifetime

16WHO, 1997

RESULTS

Response Rate

• Total 2008 respondents responded out of 2364

• Overall Response Rate: 85%

Students: 84.5% (1777 out of 2102)

Staff: 88.2% (231 out of 262)

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Demographic Background

• Age: Mean Age of 23.3 years [95% CI = 23.1– 23.6 years].

Range from 17 to 57 years• Sex: Male : 40%

Female : 60%

• Race: Malay : 62.8% Chinese: 27.6%

• Religion: Muslim: 67.2% Buddhist: 23.5%

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Prevalence of Smoking

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Overall Prevalence

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Current Smokers9.9%

Former Smokers3.8%

Never Smokers 86.3%

Ever Smokers13.7%

2008 Respondents

Reference: Table 4.7

Fig. Smoking Prevalence Among Students

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Current Smokers8.9%

Former Smokers3.2%

Never Smokers 87.9%

Ever Smokers12.1%

Students(1777)

Smoking Prevalence Among Staff

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Current Smokers17.7%

Former Smokers8.2%

Never Smokers 74%

Ever Smokers26%

Staff (231)

Reference: Table 4.7

Overall Prevalence by Sex

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Never Smokers 86.3%

Ever Smokers13.7%

30% 2.8%

21.8% 2%Current Smokers

Former Smokers 8.2% 0.8%

70% 97.2%

Male 804Female 1204

Patterns of Smoking

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Table 9: Current and Former Smokers by Age Group(Students and Staff’s )

Table 4.9: Students and Staff’s Current Smoking Prevalence of by Age Groups

Age Group Smoking Status

TotalCurrent Never

No % No % No %

Students < 20 years 19 6.3 282 93.7 301 100.0

20 - 24 110 8.7 1153 91.3 1263 100.0

25 -30 17 13.2 112 86.8 129 100.0

> 30 years 12 14.3 72 85.7 84 100.0

Total 158 8.9 57 91.1 1777 100.0

Staff 20 - 24 13 21.0 49 79.0 62 100.0

25 - 30 16 25.8 46 74.2 62 100.0

31 - 40 6 15.4 33 84.6 39 100.0

41- 50 6 9.8 55 90.2 61 100.0

> 50 years 0 0.0 7 100.0 7 100.0

Total 41 17.7 190 82.3 231 100.0

Table 1: Respondents Smoking Prevalence by Ethnic Group Smoking Status

Total Ever Smokers

CurrentSmokers

Never Smokers

EthnicGroup No % No % No % No %

Indian 12 19.0 8 12.7 51 81.0 63 100.0

Malay 199 15.8 146 11.6 1063 84.2 1262 100.0

Chinese 35 6.3 23 4.2 519 93.7 554 100.0

Other Races 29 22.5 22 17.1 100 77.5 129 100.0

Total 275 13.7 199 9.9 1733 86.3 2008 100.0

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Table 10: Smoking Prevalence by Ethnic Group

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Table 12: Prevalence of Ever, Current, Former and Never Smoker by Religion

100.0200886.317333.8769.919913.7275Total

100.03180.6253.2116.1519.46No-religion

100.05485.2461.9113.0714.88Hindu

100.010286.3884.858.8913.714Christian

100.047194.54451.783.8185.526Buddhist

100.0135083.611294.56111.916016.4221Islam

%No%No%No%No%No

NeverFormerCurrentEver

Total Smoking Status

Religion

Study’s smoking prevalence by Race was lower than NHMS 2, 1996

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Table 13: Respondents Smoking Prevalence by Occupations

Occupation of Respondent

Smoking Status

Total (%)Ever Smokers Current Smoker Never Smokers

No % No % No % No %

Supporting staff 17 38.6 12 27.3 27 61.4 44 100.0

Technician 8 36.4 7 31.8 14 63.6 22 100.0

Clerical 16 25.0 10 15.6 48 75.0 64 100.0

Administrative 14 23.7 9 15.3 45 76.3 59 100.0

Academics 5 11.9 3 7.1 37 88.1 42 100.0

Student 215 12.1 158 8.9 1562 87.9 1777 100.0

Total 275 13.7 199 9.9 1733 86.3 2008 100.0

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0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

< RM 2000 RM 2000 -2999

RM3000-3999 RM 4000 -4999

>RM 5000

Ever smoker Never Smoker

Figure 5: Smoking Prevalence with Total Monthly Family Income

χ2 = 17.55; df = 4 and p = 0.002

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Table 14: Prevalence of Ever Smokers by Faculties and Sex in UPM

Name of the Faculty

Ever Smoker Total

Male Female

No % No % No %

Faculty of Science 70 36.3 14 4.5 84 30.5

Faculty of Agriculture 30 36.1 1 0.6 31 11.3

Faculty of Economics 40 33.1 9 3.3 49 17.8

Graduate School of Management 10 32.3 1 2.5 11 4.0

Faculty of Medicine 20 25.0 3 3.0 23 8.4

Faculty of Engineering 57 24.6 1 0.8 58 21.1

Faculty of Human Ecology 14 21.9 5 2.6 19 6.9

Total 241 30.0 34 2.8 275 100.0

Age (Yrs) 95% CI

Over all 16.7 16.2 17.1

Male 16.4 16.0 16.9Female 18.1 17.0 19.0Students 16.4 16.0 16.9Staff 17.5 16.3 18.2Malays 16.3 15.8 16.8Diploma 15.0 12.9 17.1

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Table 15: Smoking Initiation Age

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Table 4.26: Reasons for Smoking amongst Ever Smokers

Reasons for Smoking Count % of Responses

% of Cases

To try for Fun 149 42. 8 54.2

To Release Tension 80 23. 0 29.1

Friends Influence 60 17. 2 21.8

It is stylish to Smoke 32 9. 2 11.6

Parents Smoke 22 6.3 8. 0

Others 5 1. 5 1. 8

Total 348 100.0 126.5

Limitation of the Study

Self report format – subjected to self-report bias

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ConclusionConclusion• The overall prevalence of current smokers

among students was 8.9% as compared to 17.7% among staff

• Among students, there was significant association between smoking and sex, age, peer influence and family member smoking status.

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Recommendations

• To strengthen existing anti-smoking programs to maintain low smoking prevalence

• Universities can develop intensive and updated anti-smoking programs at the Web pages and also deliver messages through their radio stations

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MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICEMAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE

Thank You For NOT

SMOKING

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