Background: The popularity of the narghile waterpipe, also referred to as hookah, shisha or hubble-bubble has increased tremendously during the past few decades. The aim of this study was to expose perception of narghile among a representative sample of university students in Sakarya University campus. Materials and Methods: Written approval was taken from the local education authority. An anonymous questionnaire which was prepared by the investigators and contained 17 questions was administered. Nine of the questions were related to socio-demographic characteristics and eight were related to the students harm perceptions about waterpipe. A total of 1,320 questionnaries were received and after preliminary evaluation 1,255 (95.7%) were found to be suitable for evaluation. The data was evaluated in SPSS program by using percentages and averages. Results: The mean±SD age of the students was 20.8±2.29 years (min 18, max 32). There were 864 (68.8%) females and 391 (31.2%) males. A total of 6.3 % of the students (n=79) believed that waterpipe is not harmful because its smoke does not burn the lungs. Almost one-third (n=318) think that the carcinogenic chemicals are filtered while waterpipe smoke passes from the water; 12.1 % of the students (n=152) checked "true" for the statement of "waterpipe smoke contains no nicotine". It is seen that 14.0 % of the students (n=176) think waterpipe with fruit/ aroma is healthier than plain waterpipe. Conclusions: As a result of this study, it is found out that a substantial number of university students have false beliefs on harmful effects of waterpipe smoking.

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Turkey protects its entire population of 75 million people with all the MPOWER measures at the highest level. The aim of this study is to make a comparison of smoking and addiction data obtained from Sakarya University students in 2005-6 and 2012-13. A total of 4,200 (2,500 and 1,700 for each academic year) students at Sakarya University in Sakarya, Turkey, were randomly selected for sampling purposes. The selected participants represented Sakarya University students. Data were collected using a pretested anonymous and confidential, self-completed questionnaire which took 15-20 minutes to complete and Fagerstrom Test for nicotine dependence. Chi-squared, Spearman correlation, and binary logistic regression tests were used to define associations, if any. The level of significance was kept at alpha=0.05. Smoking prevalance dropped by 8.5% (from 26.9% to 18.5%). Male gender, older age, high family smoking index, low self-rated school success, and high peer smoker proportion were common variables that have correlation with smoking status. In the binary logistic regression test the highest contributor to "being a smoker" was found to be the rate of peer smokers. Having all friends smoking puts the student a a 47.5 and 58.0 times higher risk for smoking for males and females, respectively. Our results suggest an admirable diminution of smoking prevalance among Sakarya University students, which can be attributed to MPOWER protection.

14.1 million new cancer cases in the world were seen in 2012 and 8.2 million deaths occurred as a result of cancer.

Objective: Scientific research provide information concerning an insufficient level of physical activity of young people. This study was conducted to determine the levels of physical activity among university students. Materials and Methods: In 2014-2015 academic year, 510 students voluntarily participated in this study. To obtain data, the Personal Information Form and to determine the levels of physical activity. International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) were used. Results and Discussion: It is found that the 32.8% of students were not physically active, 49.2% of them had low physical activity level, 18% of students had adequate physical activity level to protect their health. Although it was found that the male students’ physical activity scores, moderately intense activity scores, intense activity scores and walking activity scores significantly higher than girls’ activity scores (p<0.05), there is no significant difference between sitting activity scores (p<0.05). Between students who have Body Mass Index over and under 25 kg/m2, there was no significant difference found between total physical activity, moderately intense activity, intense activity, walking activity and sitting time scores (p<0.05). Conclusion: It was determined that university students have low levels of physical activity and male students have higher physical activity levels than female students. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol.19(4) 2020 p.625-631