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Tobacco smoking habits among a complete cross‐section of Australian nursing students
Author(s) -
Smith Derek R.,
Leggat Peter A.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
nursing and health sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.563
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1442-2018
pISSN - 1441-0745
DOI - 10.1111/j.1442-2018.2007.00306.x
Subject(s) - demographics , medicine , cross sectional study , smoking prevalence , family medicine , tobacco use , nursing , demography , environmental health , public health , population , pathology , sociology
This study was undertaken as a complete cross‐sectional survey of tobacco smoking habits among 270 undergraduate students at an Australian nursing school (response rate: 84.6%). An anonymous, self‐reporting questionnaire survey was used to gather the data. The overall prevalence of current smoking was 15.9%, with a further 8.5% being ex‐smokers. The nursing students consumed an average of 11.5 cigarettes per day, they began smoking at 20.8 years of age, and had an average smoking duration of 7.2 years. The students who had previously worked as a nurse were twice as likely to be current smokers. This study suggests that although tobacco smoking remains fairly common among Australian nursing students, its prevalence and distribution vary according to the individual demographics of the group under study. Future researchers will need to consider the changing demographic base from which the new generation of nursing students are drawn.