Willingess to quit smoking and its associated factors among undergraduate student smokers in a Malaysian public university

Background of study: Tobacco smoking has shown to be the largest preventable cause of death in the world, whereby each day 13000 people die prematurely because of tobacco use and 3 to 6 million people die every year, with current trend of cigarette use, it will cause 8 million deaths annually by 2030 (CDC, 2016). In Malaysia smoking-related diseases are considered important public health issues where they were the main cause of mortality with 10,000 deaths reported annually. This study is aimed at assessing the willingness of young student smokers to quit smoking and the associated factors, which may inform policy makers to devise measures and policies to assist the successful quitting of smokers. Methods: The study design is a cross-sectional study design. Sampling of the study population was done through cluster sampling with proportion to size, the sampling in the Faculty of Engineering and Agricultural Science of Universiti Putra Malaysia. Information concerning socio-demography, socio-economic as well as willingness to quit smoking, level of awareness, quit attempt, smoking behavior and living environment were collected using a pretested self-administered questionnaire. Data was analyzed using IBM SPSS version 22. Descriptive analysis was done for all variables where frequencies, measure of central tendency and dispersion are presented. The dependent variable, willingness to quit smoking was categorized using a median score of ≥17 for willing and otherwise was scored as not willing. Chi square was used to determine the association between the dependent variable and independent variables. All variable with significant association with the dependent variable were then further analyzed for predictors of willingness to quit smoking using multiple logistic regression analysis. Results: Out of 316 respondents our result showed that 42.4% were willing to quit smoking. The independent predictors of willingness were amount spent on cigarette per week (AOR = 3.073, 95% CI = 1.673 – 5.643, p=0.001), Hindus (AOR = 6.622, 95% CI = 2.461 – 17.818, p<0.001), females (AOR = 3.951, 95% CI = 1.990 – 7.847, p<0.001), living in the campus hostel (AOR = 3.950, 95% CI = 1.610-9.689, p=0.003), Indians (AOR = 7.357, 95% CI = 1.117 - 48.459, p=0.038) and internationals (AOR = 0.075, 95% CI = 0.025-0.224, p<0.001), those whose source of income was from inheritance (AOR = 9.599, 95% CI = 1.796 – 51.398, p=0.008) and those who mentioned starting smoking at other places apart from school (AOR = 145.395, 95% CI = 30.051 – 703.452, p<0.001). Conclusions: The result show that less than half of the respondents reported willingness to quit smoking and therefore, the need to improve awareness of quit smoking. An intervention study can be carried out to help quit smoking among smoking students to make more impact to the body of knowledge and the life of the young undergraduate students.

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