Nicotine prevalence among youth of rural Jaipur, Rajasthan

Children are more sensitive to tobacco advertisements than adults. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that tobacco use has doubled in the past four decades particularly among the youth. Smoking among teenagers is an issue that affects countries worldwide.

This study identified the prevalence of tobacco consumption among youth of rural Jaipur. We also studied, their age of initiation of tobacco and their correlation with the income and occupation of parents.

Community based cross-sectional type of study was conducted on youth of 15-24 years of age in 30 clusters in the Vatika, Jaipur. Cluster sampling technique was adopted. A semi-structured pretested and predesigned questionnaire was used for data collection. The inter-personal communication technique was used maintaining full confidentiality. All the results were transferred onto Microsoft excel sheet and evaluated statistically.

Out of 420 youths, 79.0% youths consumes nicotine in any form. More male subjects (90.9%) consume nicotine than females (62.8%) highly significantly. 33.1% youths started nicotine consumption <12 years. Youths from more income family(63.6%), illiterate father (76.2%), illiterate mother (74.4%), father having farming as occupation (67.2%), consumes more nicotine. more (88.6%) of youths consume nicotine with their friends. 58.1% parents oppose their children.

The prevalence of nicotine intake was higher in boys than girls and majority of them consumes nicotine in any form gutka or beedi-cigarette. The reasons for such high dependence of nicotine according to the youth were lack of knowledge of the ill effects of nicotine intake and peer pressure. However, majority of the youth did not want to quit nicotine consumption.