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Knowledge, Attitude and Pattern of Smoking Tobacco among Automobile Company Employees in Chennai - A Cross Sectional Study

BACKGROUND Tobacco addiction has emerged as a major public health issue resulting in enormous disability, disease, and death and also acquired the dimension of an epidemic. More people die as a result of the worldwide tobacco epidemic than from tuberculosis (TB), human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), and malaria combined. India is the second largest consumer of tobacco globally. It is estimated that five million preventable deaths occur every year globally. The trend of consumption of cigarettes is mostly seen among the young adult and adult population. Therefore, this study was done to assess the knowledge, attitude, and pattern of smoking among company and factory employees in Chennai. METHODS A cross sectional study was conducted among 102 automobile company employees in Chennai, where a pre-tested, self-administered questionnaire was used. Descriptive statistics, chi square test, Pearson correlation test were used to analyse the data. RESULTS Majority of the participants belonged to the 25 - 34 years age group. About 72.5 % of the participants believed smoking was harmful to their health. A statistically significant association was observed between education level and knowledge on smoking being harmful to health (P > 0.05). A positive correlation was observed among knowledge and attitude; however, both were negatively related to pattern of tobacco use. CONCLUSIONS Knowledge regarding hazards of smoking was high among the study population. However, attitude was found to be satisfactory. Majority of the study participants consumed 10 or less cigarettes per day. Even with a good knowledge towards ill effects of tobacco, good attitude towards quitting tobacco, practice of tobacco smoking was higher among study participants. This implies, tobacco cessation counseling should be made a priority health intervention. KEY WORDS Addiction, Cigarettes, Tobacco, Nicotine, Smoking