Syed Fayyaz Mehmood Gillani, Jawwad Khaliq Ansari, Sajid Ali Mustafvi, Shadab Ahmed.
Cigarette smoking among Pakistan army soldiers.
Pak Armed Forces Med J Jan ;57(3):177-81.

Objective: To evaluate frequency, intensity and other characteristics of cigarette smoking in army soldiers. Settings: Various army units stationed at Multan Garrison Materials and Methods: This is descriptive cross sectional study, in which one thousands male soldiers from various army units (both fighting and supporting arms) were randomly selected to fill the questionnaire. Results: Nine hundred and eighty six responses were included in study and rests were discarded in view of inappropriateness. Among responders, 470 (47.6%) were smokers. Frequencies of occasional, mild, moderate and heavy smoking were 11.9%, 14.8%, 10.7% and 10.2% respectively. Twenty one percent were smokers prior to joining army while 26.6% picked up this habit after induction. According to age 84.3% were less than 40 years of age while remaining 15.7% were above 40. The respective frequencies of smoking in these two age groups were 49.3% and 38.9% (p<0.05). The 56.7% of under-metric soldiers were smokers in comparison with 35.8% of over-metric (p<0.05). Frequency of smoking was 52.2% among unskilled soldiers while it was 33% in skilled soldiers (p<0.05). It was slightly higher among fighting units (52.3% vs. 47.7%). The job related stress and peer pressure were major risk factors for initiation of smoking. Almost all smokers wanted to quit and significant number of smokers reported that had tried to quit smoking at least once in the past. Conclusion: Smoking frequency is quite high among army soldiers particularly among unskilled and less educated and there is strong need to address this issue.

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