[Smoking behavior, knowledge and attitudes of freshmen students]

A questionnaire on smoking behavior, knowledge of smoking-related diseases and attitudes toward the passive exposure to smoking was administered and results analyzed for differences in (1) region, (2) major area of study in the university, (3) grade and (4) date of survey on smoking behavior, knowledge and attitude of the freshmen students. (1) 294 urban and 217 provincial university students, (2) 138 freshmen at the Department of Pharmacology and 156 freshmen at the Department of Technology, (3) 136 freshmen of Y. University and 158 freshmen in senior high school of Yamaguchi prefecture, and (4) 217 freshmen surveyed in 1990 and 136 freshmen surveyed in 1995 were the subjects. The results were as follows; 1) The percentage who had smoked once ranged from 0 to 3% among the senior high school girls and female students at minor universities. However, the percentage for male students ranged from 26% to 44% in each survey. There were clear gender differences in smoking behavior. 2) The proportion of students who admitted that they had smoked cigarettes was 30.9% for urban students and 38.6% for provincial university students, but was not a significant difference. There were no significant differences between urban and provincial students regarding knowledge of smoking-related diseases or attitudes toward passive smoke. 3) The proportion of students who admitted that they had smoked cigarettes was 44.0% for the Department of Pharmacology and 26.2% for the Department of Technology, a significant difference. There were no significant differences between pharmaceutical and engineering students in knowledge of smoking-related diseases or attitudes toward passive smoke. 4) The proportion of students who admitted that they had smoked cigarettes was 27.4% for university freshmen and 1.6% for senior high school freshmen. There was a significant difference between the two. The percentage who replied that the smoker must be considerate to non-smokers tended to be higher in the senior high school students than the university students. However, there was no significant differences between the two groups of students in knowledge of smoking-related diseases or attitudes toward passive smoke. 5) Although the proportion of students who admitted that they had smoked cigarettes was 38.6% in the 1990 survey and 27.4% in the 1995 survey, this was not a significant difference. The percentage of students in the 1990 survey who indicated an awareness of the relationship between smoking and coronary heart diseases was significantly greater than the percentage of students who indicated a similar awareness in the 1995 survey. These results suggest that the differences in the grade and the department of the university (or the nature of school) must be considered when surveying smoking behavior. It does not appear to be necessary, however, to consider regional differences or the date of survey, if students were surveyed relatively recently, concerning smoking behavior, knowledge of smoking-related diseases and attitudes toward the effect of passive exposure to smoking.