Psychiatry & Psychology Health

Biography

Biography: Abdulhameed Abdullah Bokhari

Abstract

Medical school is known as being stressful, difficult to learn and may significantly affect students’ psychological well-being. Also relieving stress is one of the main reasons for smoking among college students. Our aim in this study is to assess the association between tobacco smoking and stress, anxiety and depression among medical students of KSAU-HS, Jeddah. Data were collected through a validated questionnaire to assess stress, anxiety and depression and smoking status of cigarettes, e-cigarettes, shisha and hookah among medical students. 307 medical students responded to the questionnaire from the second to the sixth year of medical school. The prevalence of smoking was as follows: 52 students (17.2%) are cigarette smokers, 21 students (7%) are e-cigarette smokers, 58 students (19.2%) are hookah smokers and 21 students (7%) are shisha smokers. Also, our study found a difference in smoking patterns between male and female students. Males have more tendencies to smoke cigarettes and hookah with a p-value of 0.01 and 0.02, respectively. Our study demonstrated that there were high levels of stress, anxiety and depression. 48% of students had stress, 54.6% of students had anxiety and 54.3% of students had some degree of depression. Female students have significantly more stress than males with a p-value of 0.003. Male gender and cigarette smokers are associated with a decreased rate of depression with a p-value of 0.035 and 0.03, respectively. We recommend that medical students need workshops on how to develop better coping skills. Furthermore, they need more counselling about smoke cessation.