Cent Eur J Public Health 2021, 29(1):45-55 | DOI: 10.21101/cejph.a6576

Prevalence and predictors of smoking, quit attempts and total smoking ban at the University of Turku, Finland

Walid El Ansari^{1, 2, 3}, Abdul Salam⁴

¹ Department of Surgery, Hamad General Hospital, Doha, Qatar

² College of Medicine, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar

³ School of Health and Education, University of Skövde, Skövde, Sweden

⁴ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, King Fahad Specialist Hospital, Dammam, Saudi Arabia

Objectives: The current study employed socio-demographic, health and lifestyle, and academic variables to assess the prevalence and independent predictors of daily smoking, attempts to quit smoking, and agreement with total smoking ban at university.

Methods: Students at the University of Turku (1,177) completed an online questionnaire that assessed socio-demographic, health and lifestyle, and academic characteristics, and three smoking variables (smoking, attempts to quit, agreement with total smoking ban at university). Bivariate relationships and multiple logistic regression assessed relationships between student characteristics and the three smoking variables before and after controlling for all other variables.

Results: Slightly < 80% of students never smoked, 16% were occasional, and about 6% were daily smokers, and about 40% had attempted to quit. Nearly half the sample agreed to total smoking ban at university. Physical activity, consuming alcohol, illicit drug/s use and daily smoking were significant independent predictors across > 1 of the three smoking variables. Age, health awareness, importance of achieving good grades, academic performance compared to peers, study burden, and mother's educational level were significant independent predictors of one of the three variables examined.

Conclusion: Universities need to assess smoking, with specific focus on the modifiable independent predictors that were associated with > 1 the variables examined, to encourage physical activity and pay attention to reduce alcohol consumption and illicit drug/s and daily smoking, whilst targeting at-risk students. University strategies should be part of the wider country-wide effective tobacco control policies.

Keywords: quitting, smoking ban, Finland, university students

Received: October 10, 2020; Revised: January 11, 2021; Accepted: January 11, 2021; Published: March 31, 2021  Show citation