Prevalence and Education of Smoking in a District of South India

Smoking becomes one of the main reason for death in India, approximately 120 million people was get addicted to smoking in India. It causes some dreadful diseases like cancer, tuberculosis, respiratory problems etc. It is truly remarkable that one single factor, namely smoking which is entirely preventable, accounts for nearly one in 10 of all deaths in India.The prevalence of smoking especially with reference to detailed habits such as the amount smoked, the smoking forms, quite – rate and reason for smoking were studied in a district of South India. Adult over 15 years of age were included and the data’s were collected using specially designed questionnaire. We educate the subject who participated in this study regarding the red alarming nature and harmful effects of smoking and its benefits of quitting. Among 1028 study population studied, regular smoking habit was present in 566(55.06%) subjects. Among different forms of smoking, the mostly used form was bidi 260(45.94%), cigarettes (without filters) by 198(34.98%), cigarettes (with filters) by 97(17.14%) and hookah 11(1.94%). The number of cigarettes/bidis smoked daily was between 5-8 cigarettes or bidis/day (43.64%) and the majority regular smokers were from the age group of 21-25(47%). Among the population, 53.36% smokes in order to relief from stress. Less education(41.2%), low socio-economic status(38.4%) and rural residence were other important factors associated with smoking. Education related to nature and harmful effect of smoking was explained to all subjects.Quitting smoking was the single biggest thing you can do to improve your health. Even though some methods were available to give up smoking the only way to prevent from smoking related diseases was to quit smoking by themselves. It’s never too late to stop smoking, which could protect you and your family from many fatal diseases.