Factors related to tobacco health literacy and smoking behavior of university students

Abstract

            This descriptive research  aimed to  study smoking behavior and tobacco health literacy and the relationship between personal characteristics and tobacco health literacy, tobacco health literacy and smoking behavior. A sample of 395 undergraduate students, was selected using stratified random sampling method. The research tools were questionnaires on tobacco health literacy and smoking behavior. Their Cronbach's alpha coefficients were 0.88 and 0.90 respectively. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, and chi-square test. The results were: 1)  the majority of university students (85.06 %) were the non-smokers while  only 14.94 percent of them, were the smokers. The majority of them (67.80%) had tobacco health literacy at a moderate level. 2) Tobacco health literacy were significantly related to gender ( ꭓ² = 8.607) and faculty ( ꭓ² = 13.282) at p < .05, but unrelate to smoking behavior (ꭓ² = 0.412, p > .05).