Awareness and Knowledge of Smoking-Related Cancers Among University Students in Jordan

Background: Jordan, a Middle Eastern country, has a high prevalence rate of smoking. However, little research was done to evaluate knowledge of smoking-related cancers in the region. Objective: To assess knowledge of smoking-related cancers among Jordanian university students. Design: Cross-sectional study conducted in July, 2013, using a self-administered online questionnaire. The questionnaire was sent to students from University of Jordan. Results: The final sample consisted of 230 students. The majority of participants (98.7%) were aware that smoking has harmful health effects and (95.7%) agreed that smoking causes cancer. Most of the participants agreed that smoking causes lung cancer (97.8%), oral cancer (83.0%), laryngeal cancer (82.6%), pharyngeal cancer (80.0%), and esophageal cancer (63.0%), while less than half of the participant thought that smoking causes AML (46.1%), stomach cancer (36.1%), kidney cancer (32.6%), cervical cancer (19.6%), pancreatic cancer (19.1%), and bladder cancer (14.8%). Females showed more knowledge about smoking-related cancers than males (p < 0.05) but the there was no significant difference between smokers and non-smokers. Conclusion: These findings show that most of the students know that lung cancer is caused by smoking. However, there is a lower knowledge of other smoking-related cancers. Our study suggests that more efforts should be done to increase the awareness of the adverse health hazards of smoking especially that are related to cancer.