Nazeer Khan, Sundus Lftikhar, Sundus Lftikhar, Sundus Lftikhar, Syed Affanulhaq.
Effect of Age and Gender on the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Shisha Smoking among Medical and Dental Students of Karachi, Pakistan.
J Dow Uni Health Sci Jan ;10(3):107-12.

Objective: To determine the effects of age and gender on knowledge, attitude and practice of Shisha smoking among medical and dental students ofKarachi, Pakistan. Methodology: This cross sectional survey was conducted in 2007 among 7 colleges randomly chosen from20 medical and dental colleges ofKarachi. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed among the students during the class hours. The questionnaire contained demographic information, area of study (medicine/dentistry),year of study, smoking habits, frequency and place of smoking, attitude and knowledge of diseases related to shisha smoking. Results: Out of 1204 participants, 22.8% indicated that they smoked shisha. The prevalence among males and females were 41% and 16.9%, respectively. Only 35% of the respondents indicated that they smoked shisha“daily” or weakly. 47.5% mentioned that they used shisha bar for shisha smoking. 67% of the respondents showed that they were influenced by friends to adopt this habit. 59% of the students considered shisha smoking harmful. 62% of the students related the shisha smoking to lung diseases and about quarter of the respondents related it to cancer and heart diseases. Twenty six to thirty percent of the respondents indicated that they experienced headache, dizziness and cough during shisha smoking. Only seven percent of the respondent stook the advice of the doctors after feeling the above mentioned symptoms. Conclusion: The study concludes that a high prevalence of shisha smoking exists among medical / dental students and knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) among males are significantly different in m any respects to the females. However, the age groups do not affect significantly in m ost of the responses.

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