Awareness and perception of blindness related to smoking among Nigerian undergraduates
Keywords:
Blindness, smoking, lung cancer, heart disease, strokeAbstract
Background: Although evidence now exists to show that smoking is a major risk factor for common sight-threatening conditions, there is a worrying lack of awareness of blindness as a smoking-related condition among the public.
Objective: To determine the awareness and perception of blindness related to smoking as compared to other known smoking related conditions among Nigerian undergraduates.
Method: This was a cross sectional survey carried out in the University of Benin, Nigeria between January and June, 2013. Three thousand five hundred closed-ended questionnaires were distributed among ten faculties in the University. Participants were asked in the questionnaires about their awareness of a link between blindness and smoking as relates to other smokingattributable conditions like lung cancer, heart disease and stroke.
Results: Three thousand questionnaires (85.7%) were returned properly and completely filled from the ones sent out. Study respondents comprised of 1848 (61.6%) male students and 1152 (38.4%) female students aged 16 to 30 years (mean 22.1±2.1 years). The number of students who believed smoking definitely or probably caused lung cancer, stroke and heart disease was 2760 (92%), 2253 (75.1%) and 2577 (85.9%), respectively. About half of the study population 1488 (49.6%) believed smoking can cause blindness as compared to 423 (14.1%) who believed it can cause deafness. The difference between those who believed that blindness can be caused by smoking and those who believed smoking can be a cause of the other attributable conditions was significant (p<0.001).
Conclusion: The awareness of the risk of blindness from smoking is less than other known smoking related conditions. Publicizing this risk might help reduce prevalence of smoking.
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