Abstract:

Smoking kills more people than alcohol, AIDS, car crashes, illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined, and thousands more die from tobacco-related causes such as exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (also called passive smoking), smokeless tobacco use and fires caused by smoking.

Methods: A cross sectional community based study was carried out among young adults from Nyamagana district community from 2nd June to 30th July, 2014. The aim of the study was to determine their knowledge/awareness on the dangers/affects posed by smoking tobacco to human health. Data was obtained from respondents who had informed given was confidential and for the research purpose and no names were noted in the questionnaires. The questions were open ended as well as closed ended and structured for computerization. Data analysis was done using simple tables for rates and proportion.

Results: Of the respondents 36% were aged 26-30 years old, followed by 33% aged 21-25 years, and 31% aged 18-20 years. 72% were male and 28% were female. 43.5% respondents ever tried to smoke cigarette while 56.5% never tried to smoke cigarette. More than half (53%) of males report to ever tried smoking while only 19.6% of all female ever tried to smoke, whereas siblings and parents were the source of first cigarette to smoke by 4.6% and 5.7% respectively. 40% reports that peer groups was the reason why people keeps on smoking followed by 37.5% who report that people smoking for pleasure, followed by 15% who said people smoke to reduce stress, 7% report social acceptance to be reason and 0.5% said advertisements was the reason why people keep on smoking. 79.5% report that they know the dangers posed by smoking cigarette where 20.5% said they don’t know the dangers posed by smoking. Those who report to know the dangers posed by smoking the mentioned respiratory disease including TB and lung cancer as the most effects caused by smoking cigarette. But when asked if they know smoking tobacco can cause heart disease 45%, agreed hypertension 33% agreed, respiratory disease 80% agreed, preterm birth only 22% agreed, low birth weight (LBW) 23% agreed, lung cancer 62% agreed, only bladder cancer 14.5% agreed, cancer of cervix 14%, cancer of throat 52.5% agreed, delaying wound healing 12% agreed, infertility 10.5% agreed smoking can cause ectopic pregnancy.

Conclusion: Most of the individuals were aware that smoking can cause health effects to the human body about 79.5% said that they were aware that smoking can cause dangers to the human health. But when asked individual disease most of respondents were aware that smoking had only direct harm to the respiratory system by causing respiratory disease including chronic cough, TB and lung cancer but most were unaware of the other risks of smoking cigarette like bladder cancer, heart disease, cerebral vascular accidents, and other reproductive defects like prematurity, LBW, abortion, ectopic pregnancy and infertility.