Smoking status of students at a medical school, 1998-1999 *
A survey of the smoking status of fifth-year students at Kawasaki Medical school was carried out over a two-year period (1998 and 1999) Each student was asked about smoking habits when he/she visited our ward to see patients. To assess the students' academic performance, they were divded into two groups : students who were promoted to the fifth-year without failures (straight promotion group) and students who had repeated the same year at least once (repeater group) . The prevalence of smoking in male students was 55.7% in 1998 and 49.3% in 1999,, while that in female students was 29.2% and 13.9% , respectively. Among male students smoking rates in the straight promotion group were 46.0% in 1998 and 33.3% in 1999. whereas those in the repeater group were 80.0% and 89.5%. Among female students, smoking rates in the straight promotion group were 27.3% in 1998 and 10.7% in 1999. whereas those in the repeater group were 50.0% and 25.0%. The smoking rate among male students was significantly higher in the repeater group than in the straight promotion group. Most of the smoking male students had started smoking before they reached the age of 20. Low-tar and low-nicotine yield cigarette are popular among. both male and. female students. Three major motives for starting to smoke were "for fun" . "no special reason". and "offered by friends or peer pressure",Two major reasons for not smoking in nonsmoking students were "smell or smoke" and "not interested". More aggressive antismoking education and comprehensive tobacco contol measures are needed to reduce the high smoking rate of students of our medical school. (Accepted on June 5, 2000) Kawasaki Igakkaishi 26 (3) : 129 -134, 2000
