The effect of healthy lifestyle behaviours on smoking among university students

ABSTRACT

Purpose

The current study was conducted in order to determine the effect of healthy lifestyle behaviors on smoking university students.

Material and Method

The cross-sectional study was composed of a population of 8,054 students studying at five different faculties of Gumushane University. In the research, 921 students were reached by Convenience sampling method. The data were collected using a personal identification form, the Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors Scale–II (HLBS-II), and the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND). Mean, percentage, the independent samples t-test, the Chi-square test, and regression analysis were utilized to assess the data.

Results

The smoking prevalence among the students was found to be 28%. It was determined that the HLBS-II mean score of the students was 128.22 ± 24.89. The FTND mean score was 2.64 ± 2.42. It was found that HLBS-II and the subscale mean score of smoking students was lower than those who did not smoke. Additionally, socio-demographic characteristics of the smoking students had an effect of 30.7% on the Fagerstrom Nicotine Dependence status.

Conclusion

Through the results of the present study, it was determined that students with a high level of healthy lifestyle behaviors smoked less and had lower levels of smoking addiction.

KEYWORDS:

• Smoking
• healthy lifestyle
• university students

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.