Tobacco use by Indian medical students and the need for comprehensive intervention strategies.

Background: Tobacco is one of the most important causes of pulmonary and cardiac diseases. Health professionals, including medical students, should ideally play an important role in the fight against tobacco use but several reports suggest that a good number of medical students are themselves addicted to tobacco.

Methods: This is a single institutional cross-sectional survey of preclinical medical students in Moti Lal Nehru Medical College, Allahabad over a five-year period from 2003-2007. Data was collected using the WHO Global Health Professionals Survey questionnaire.

Results: 560 students over a period of five years were included in this study. A total of 183 were tobacco users of which 83 were tobacco chewers, 59 cigarette smokers and 41 were addicted to both chewing and smoking. As health professionals, 88% knew that they should advise their patients to quit tobacco.

Conclusion: This study showed rampant abuse of tobacco. Specific smoking cessation training is needed for medical students to develop appropriate skills and strategies.