Tobacco use Among High School Students of West Bengal, India

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Tobacco use Among High School Students of West Bengal, India
Sir, This study was conducted to estimate the prevalence, frequency and knowledge regarding the adverse effects of tobacco use among high school students of West Bengal, India.
From June 1 st , 2003 to May 31 st , 2004, we conducted a population-based cross-sectional study on students selected by a multistage random sampling. An anonymous self-administered pretested close-ended questionnaire was designed by adopting the questionnaire developed by the study team of the World health Organization (WHO, 1980) (1) with regard to both smoke and smokeless tobacco use. Of all urban and rural high schools in West Bengal, one school in each category was randomly selected. The study population comprised 478 students of class VIII, IX and X from two schools (urban school, 210 students; rural school, 268 students); of these students selected, 462 (urban school, 205 students; rural school, 257 students) were studied. The Þ nal response was obtained from 416 students (87.02%). After obtaining permission from school authorities and verbal informed consent from the subjects enrolled, the Þ rst author and the principal investigator collected the data from the students on the same day.
Overall prevalence was 9.61%; the prevalence among urban and rural students was 11.05% and 8.61%, respectively. Tobacco use among males (urban = 11.35% and rural = 15.04%) was higher than that among females (urban = 9.68% and rural = 0.90%). Tobacco use was more common among the rural male students although not signiÞ cant (Z = 0.9, P> 0.05). The opposite was true among the female students (Z = 4.4, P < 0.05). Male students (13.14%) were associated more with tobacco use than the female students (2.82%). The current tobacco use ranged from 36.84% to 52.38% among the urban and rural students, respectively. The regular use of tobacco was higher among the rural students (14.29%) than the urban students (10.53%).
Current as well as regular use of tobacco was higher among urban as well as rural male students, whereas females were restricted to the Þ rst use [ Table 1].
A majority of the urban and rural users were aware of the harmful effects of tobacco use. All the 19 urban users had the knowledge regarding the deleterious effects of tobacco use. A majority (76.19%) among the rural users also knew about such effects of tobacco use.

Discussion
The prevalence rate of tobacco use in the present study shows results similar to those of other studies, (2,3) whereas in few studies, the prevalence rates are higher. (4) In this study, males were more likely than females to use all types of tobacco products; further, the studies conducted by other authors showed similar results. (5)(6)(7)(8) The current and regular tobacco use (both smoke and smokeless) in any form among male students exceeded their female counterparts, which was evident from the results of similar studies. (4,5) Current as well as regular use was found more among the rural students, but opposite results were found in a study conducted in Kenya. (8) The variation in the results can be attributed to the study of different forms of tobacco in other studies. (9) A majority of the students used tobacco in spite of having the knowledge about their harmful effects; similar Þ ndings have been cited in other studies, (10) which is, unfortunately, very alarming. Letter To Editor Conduction of 'good' medical research is dependent on the detailed understanding and appropriate handling of ethical, epidemiological, biostatistical, and common sense skills. While it is acknowledged that medical research, like all branches of medicine, is best learnt through 'doing' rather than 'reading'; the availability of a simple text that highlights the conceptual issues is a welcome need. The expectation from such a text would be to convey the fundamental research ethos into the daily practice of even novice researchers. The book should be easily readable and must judiciously emphasize on the mathematical concepts. It should strive to balance between the concepts and the excessive and sometimes unnecessary use of detailed statistics.
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