Differences of smoking knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors between medical and non-medical students.

Background: Previous studies in the world reported inconsistent results about the relationship of medical professional education with medical students' smoking behaviors, and no similar research had been published in China.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore whether the differences of smoking-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors existed between medical and non-medical undergraduate students.

Methods: Eight thousand one hundred thirty-eight undergraduate students sampled from a university in Guangzhou were investigated with a self-administered structured questionnaire about their smoking-related knowledge, attitude and behaviors, and other relevant factors. General linear model and multinomial logistic regression were conducted to test the differences in smoking-related knowledge, attitude, and behaviors between medical and non-medical students while controlling for potential confounding variables.

Results: There was no difference in smoking-related knowledge scores between medical and non-medical freshmen, but medical sophomores and juniors had higher scores of smoking-related knowledge than their non-medical counterparts. The medical sophomores had higher mean score of attitudes towards smoking than non-medical ones. Before entering university, the difference in the prevalence of experimental and regular smoking between medical and non-medical college students was not significant. After entering university, in contrast, the overall prevalence of regular smoking was significantly higher among male non-medical college students than among male medical students. Stratified by current academic year, this difference was significant only among male sophomores.

Conclusions: Medical students have higher smoking-related knowledge, stronger anti-smoking attitude, and lower prevalence of regular smoking than non-medical college students of similar age, which may be associated with medical professional education.