Abstract
Introduction. In Egypt, each faculty has it own students? union,
which represents the students and collaborates in organizing
all educational, sporting and social activities. The objectives of
the current study were to evaluate the knowledge of members of
students? unions about cigarette and Shisha smoking together
with assessing their attitudes towards smoking in public places
in general and in the university.
Methodology. A random sample of members of Ain Shams
University Students? Unions was subjected to an interview
questionnaire. All participants were individually interviewed
face-to-face by a trained interviewer from March 1, 2005 to
April 30, 2005.
Results. Our study showed that 34 (31.5%) students were smokers.
The mean knowledge score percentage was 79.4 ± 20.7.
Regarding knowledge about Shisha smoking hazards, the
majority of the students (84.3%) knew that Shisha smoking
is hazardous. The mean attitude score percentage was 56.8±
22.2. Smokers had less mean knowledge as regard smoking
hazards compared to non-smokers (p inf. 0.01). Also, smokers had
a lower mean attitude compared to non-smokers (p inf. 0.001).
More than one-third (38.9%) of the interviewed students
didn?t know if the students? union has a policy for prevention
of smoking or not.
Conclusion. Our findings point that although our students had a
moderately high mean knowledge score yet this didn?t increase
their attitude about the smoking problem in the university and
in the community. This supports the notion that, in addition to
knowledge about smoking hazards, efforts are needed to change
beliefs that allow this offensive habit to continue.
