Awareness and knowledge of smoking cessation and related diseases among undergraduate students in UiTM Puncak Alam / Muhamad Faizol Mamat

Globally there are nearly 1.1 billion users of nicotine and tobacco products while approximately one third to half of them will die from smoking-related disease. Knowledge and awareness regarding tobacco-related diseases is one of the possible factors for smokers to cease smoking. This study is conducted among undergraduate students in University Teknologi Mara (UiTM) in Puncak Alam campus. The primary objective of the study is to identify the prevalence of smokers among undergraduate students, and also to assess the level of knowledge and awareness of respondents towards smoking related diseases and cessation methods that are available. The result showed that out of 400 respondents, about 20.5% (N=82) of the total population were smokers and as expected the prevalence for the males was much higher 19.5%(N=78) than that for females 1%(N=4). The study also showed 5.8% (N=23) of them were ex-smokers. 59.75% reportedly think that the smoke from other people’s cigarettes or passive smoking is ‘definitely harmful’. However there were 40% of respondents answered ‘probably not’ and ‘definitely not’, which indicates low knowledge. All of the respondents had come across with smoking cessation method but did not have the sufficient knowledge about it. When asked about how well their understanding and knowledge on the information given regarding the smoking cessation method, majority of them 60% (N=240) claimed that they ‘probably understood’ about the smoking cessation methods, which indicate low understanding in smoking cessation methods. The study also found that many of the respondents never had heard of various anti-smoking products in the market, particularly those available over-the-counter (i.e., nicotine patch and gum), there appeared to be poor understanding of the functional benefits of pharmacotherapy. The study may provide some clues to the authorities on how to address smoking related problems among university students.