Smoking habits of medical students in a private medical college of Bangladesh

Objective: To assess trends of smoking and the relation between smoking behavior of under graduate med- ical students and their attitudes towards smoking and treatment of tobacco dependence. Methodology: Data was collected from the medical students of Rajshahi Islami Bank Medical College, Bangladesh. A total of 200 male students completed the anonymous questionnaire. Response rate was 80.0%. Results: Of the respondents 20% and 80% were regular smokers and non-smokers respectively. Only 32.50 % of the regu- lar smokers smoke less than ten cigarettes, 30.0 % smoke ten to twenty cigarettes whereas, 37.50% smoke more than 20 cigarettes per day. 25% and 27.5% and 25.0 % started at twenty and twenty one years of ages respectively. for pleasure. Only 29.72% smoke light cigarettes whereas 33.78% and 36.48% smoke medium and heavy cigarettes respectively. Almost 75% realized that their cigarette smoke bother others and again 70% of smokers have attempted to quit smoking but failed and 42.5% still wanted to quit smoking. About 55% of smokers complained that they suffer from chronic cough, 60% were lacking concentration in their studies and 45% felt that they were short of mem- ory. Conclusions: Attitudes of smokers were significantly dif ferent on most items of tobacco, but knowl- edge of tobacco problem in the under graduate medical students was not sufficient. Teaching about tobacco and related issues remains essential in the under graduate medical course.