Smoking perceptions and practice among nursing students in Kabupaten Kupang, Indonesia

Objective: Several studies have offered evidence of the importance of nursing-led interventions in smoking cessation. However, other studies have found that negative perceptions and smoking among nurses were barriers to them providing such interventions. The purpose of this study is to investigate smoking prevalence among nursing students and the demographic predictors of smoking, as well as perceptions about their roles with regard to smoking behaviour. Methods: A cross-sectional, self-administered, anonymous survey was conducted with all nursing students of the Maranatha School of Health Science in Indonesia. Smoking status, individual and familial characteristics including socio-economic status, and smoking cessation-related knowledge and attitudes were examined. Result: From the population of 313 students, 197 (62.9%) completed questionnaires were included in the analysis. The prevalence of current smoking for participants overall (25.9%) and males (52.4%) were similar to general population smoking rates in East Nusa Tenggara Province (25.9% overall and 52% for males) but lower than national rates (39% and 75.2%). However, the smoking rate among female participants (7%) was higher than national (2.9%) and regional (0.8%) female smoking rates. The majority of participants were aware of smoking health-related risk (87.3%) and supportive of giving smoking cessation advice (96.4%). In terms of seeing themselves as role models by not smoking at all, approximately 97% non-smokers agreed whereas only 60.8% of smokers agreed. Gender and being supportive of being role models by not smoking at all were significant predictors of the smoking status. Conclusion: This study suggests that smoking prevalence among nursing students is high. Despite most of the students having good smoking-related knowledge and having supportive attitudes towards providing smoking cessation services, high smoking prevalence is known to be an impediment to being effective in delivering cessation services. Personal smoking behaviour among nurses needs to be addressed to encourage critical nursing-led smoking cessation interventions.