Prevalence of tobacco use in university public employees and evaluation of their knowledge, attitudes and behaviors on this subject

Objectives: In this study, we aimed to investigate the factors related to tobacco and cigarette smoking status, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of public employees of the Selçuk University. Methods: This study was planned to determine the frequency of use of tobacco and its products and the attitudes and behaviors of 458 public employees of the Selçuk University between 2017 and 2018. A questionnaire consisting of 39 questions including the factors affecting the use/cessation status of tobacco and its products and the knowledge, attitudes, and opinions of the public employees of the university was applied. Results: The mean age of the 458 people studied was 39.21±10.26; of them, 64.6% were males and 35.4% were females. In general, the frequency of using tobacco and smoking was 32.1%. Among the university public employees, the frequency of tobacco and cigarette smoking status of medical faculty teaching staff and research staff was 23.2% and that of medical faculty nurses and other health staff was 38.0%. Tobacco and cigarette smoking in males (38.2%) was statistically significantly higher than in females (21.0%) (p=0.000). The smoking rate was 26.6% and the smoking prevalence among medical faculty members (17.9%) was lower compared to those of other health professionals (35.4%) and academic staff (26.0%) (p=0.053). Among the university employees, the smoking rate in males (33.1%) was statistically significantly higher than in females (14.8%) (p=0.000). The frequency of narghile use was 11.1%, hand-rolled tobacco use 7.0%, cigar use 6.1%, pipe use 1.5%, and chewing tobacco use 0.4%. Conclusion: The fact that the frequency of using tobacco and cigarette is 32.1% and the cigarette smoking rate is 26.6% among the university public employees in our study reveals that tobacco and cigarette use is still a great problem.