Smoking has been a global public health and social problem for many years. Tobacco control is presented in most countries as a key direction of health protection field. Sustained effort is being done by the World Health Organization, and hundreds of antismoking campaigns and projects are being implemented and developed. Smoking as a risk factor contributes to most chronic non-communicable diseases, which cause more than 60% of death cases in developing countries. Despite the measures taken, the number of smoking young people is increasing. Special attention is paid to the prevalence of smoking among the medical students’ community.
OBJECTIVE
To reveal and analyze the prevalence of smoking among medical students on the example of VSMU named after N.N. Burdenko.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
An anonymous survey of 164 students was used to estimate the prevalence of smoking. The survey was conducted on the questions presented in the Google Form, during the training of fifth year students of the medical faculty on the 9-day «Medical prevention» cycle on the 3+ Federal State Educational Standard for higher professional education. Follow-up period — 6 months. This questionnaire was developed by specialists of the Russian Society for the Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases and is used in the work of the Voronezh Regional Clinical Center for Public Health and Medical Prevention.
RESULTS
Adherence to smoking is 37.2%. Age at smoking initiation in some respondents was quite young: up to 12 years — 7.9%, 12—16 years — 35.5%, 17—20 years — 43.4%, 20—25 years — 13.2%. Most smoking students (96.2%) smoke less than 10 cigarettes per day. The majority (56.1%) of students are ready to quit the addiction, the motivation for refusal of dependence is prevention of consequences (27.8%), elimination of the need for smoking (27.8%). A proportion of students equal 78.7% are aware of the harm of electronic cigarettes, along with this 75% of respondents prefer them. At the same time, respondents support the issue of widespread use of electronic cigarettes. Despite being aware of the harm, 12.8% of respondents are convinced that electronic cigarettes are a way to smoking cessation.
CONCLUSION
It is necessary to expand the «healthy environment» on the territory of the university, actively conduct education on the dangers of smoking among students, introduce individual and collective classes for training of students about ways of smoking control and development of preventive working skills in future doctors, organize psychological counseling to students who want to stop smoking on the university’s territory in order to increase the adherence of the medical practitioner to a healthy lifestyle and more fruitful preventive orientation in the medical activity.
