Assessment of knowledge and practice towards tobacco and alcohol consumption among male adolescents in urban slums of Delhi

Abstract

Background: Tobacco and alcohol consumption has become a serious public health problem. Evidences show that both alcohol and tobacco consumption can cause substantial health related morbidity and mortality among adolescents. The Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS), a cross-sectional survey conducted among school students, aged 13-15 years, highlighted that the overall prevalence of current tobacco users in India was (14.6%) in the year 2009. 1 The consumption of tobacco and alcohol among adolescents in India is increasing dramatically. Hence, a study was conducted to assess the level of knowledge and practice about alcohol and tobacco consumption among male adolescents. The objective of the study was to assess the level of knowledge and practice regarding tobacco and alcohol consumption among the male adolescents living in urban slum of Delhi. Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out among 100 male adolescents from urban slums of Delhi. Data was collected using semi-structured, self-administered interview schedule. The collected data was entered using Microsoft Excel 2007 and was analyzed using IBM SPSS statistics 20. Chi-square test was applied and level of significance was kept at P value of <0.05. The study period was from 11 th June to 31 st July.Results: The knowledge level among adolescents regarding tobacco and alcohol and its harmful effects found satisfactory. Almost all the participants had knowledge regarding different forms of tobacco and diseases caused by tobacco intake in various forms and alcohol consumption. In spite of having sound knowledge of harmful effect of tobacco and alcohol, high percentage was using them. Only (14.0%) of study participants never consumed any kind of tobacco and alcohol. Conclusions: In our study we revealed that mere knowledge regarding tobacco intake and alcohol consumption is not important. Participants of the study having adequate knowledge didn't practice the same. The implementation of strict rules regarding prevention from tobacco and alcohol is needed.