Preliminary examination of first year female university students: smoking practices and beliefs in a city with no-smoking legislation.(Report)

Young adults between the ages of 20 to 24 are reported to have the highest smoking rates of any other age group. A questionnaire was used to assess the smoking practices and beliefs of 323 female university students. All participants were first year students entering university in a city where smoke-free legislation had been enacted. Results indicated that smoking rates were lower then those found among other university samples. This suggests that no-smoking legislation may promote an atmosphere where pressures to smoke are minimized, thus assisting students in making positive choices concerning their health. These exploratory findings require replication in future research.

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Despite the documented adverse effects of smoking on health (1,2,3) and the devastating economic costs from a health care perspective (e.g., from lost productivity, fire damage) (4,5) society continues to use tobacco products. Health Canada (6) reports that 20 to 24 year olds have the highest smoking rates of any other age group. For example, numerous campus-based studies in North America have reported smoking rates between 10% to 19%; (7,8,9,10) however, if experimental smoking is considered, rates increase dramatically to 37% to 78%. (9,10) Although research reveals that smoking prevalence declines with higher educational attainment (American Lung Association, 2002; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001), (4,11) smoking still exists among the educated.

Over and above the effects smoking has on disease development, (2) smoking creates additional problems unique to women. For example, Stachenko et al. (3) found that female smokers who use oral contraceptives are 8 to 10 times more likely to suffer a cardiovascular incident then non-smoking oral contraceptive users, including the possibility of a subarachnoid hemonhage, depressed HDL-cholesterol levels, and myocardial infarction. Additionally, women smokers are also more likely to face issues with infertility and problems while pregnant (e.g., higher rates of spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, low birth weight babies, premature deliveries). (2) Additionally Crocker et al. (12) revealed that smokers had lower levels of global self-esteem, body attractiveness and greater dietary restriction than non-smokers (see, also, George & Johnson (13)).

Purpose

This exploratory research highlights some of the findings obtained from the analysis of a questionnaire administered to university-aged women concerning their beliefs and smoking practices in a city with no-smoking legislation.

Methods