NICOTINE DEPENDENCE LEVEL OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS RELATING TO TYPE OF EDUCATION AND GENDER

Abstract

Smoking is an increasingly important public health problem because of the health problems it causes. We aimed to investigate whether there is a relationship between nicotine addiction level, education type and gender in vocational school of health services students who smoke in the study. This descriptive study was conducted with first and second year university students studying in various associate degree programs in health field. In the study, questionnaire forms were used to determine sociodemographic conditions prepared with scientific support as data collection tool. Nicotine dependence was determined by the Fagerstrom nicotine dependence test (FNBT). A total of 72 students attending 34 daytime education and 38 nighttime education courses participated in the research. 47 of the participants were female(% 65.3) and 25 (%34.7) male. In our study, 57 of the students are between the ages of 17-20 and the remaining 15 are over 21 years old. 29 of the participants in the study were low-level addicts, 34 were moderately addicts, and 9 were high-level nicotine addicts. When the inter-gender dependency levels are examined, 58.8% of the female students and 41.2% of the male students are moderately addicted. 52.6% of evening education students are moderately dependent, 41.2% of daytime education students are moderately and lowly dependent. There was no statistically significant difference between gender, type of education and nicotine addiction. There was no significant difference between the level of dependence, education type and gender in nicotine dependence level study using FNBT. The addiction rate was also higher for women. Most of the students who had nighttime learning were mostly moderate nicotine addicts.