Health hazards of tobacco smoking: an alarming lack of public awareness

ABSTRACT

This paper assesses public awareness and knowledge of smoking-associated oral and general health hazards. A face- to-face interview with a randomly selected sample of 524 patients of those attending the four main health care centers in Amman, Jordan was used to collect the data. Virtually all respondents [97.9%] were aware that smoking has negative effects on general health and the majority [87.4%] related lung cancer to smoking. It was found that non-smokers were significantly more likely to believe in this than current smokers. About one third of respondents to this survey were unaware of the link between smoking, heart and chronic pulmonary diseases and around two thirds were unaware of the link with hypertension, stroke and other cancers. There was an 83.2% awareness of the link between smoking and staining of teeth but there were serious deficits in awareness of the role of smoking in gingival disease, calculus formation, caries, oral infections and loss of teeth. Almost one third of the patients did not know that smoking is the most important aetiological factor of oral cancer. There is a clear need to inform and educate the Jordanian public on matters related to the known health hazards of tobacco consumption and dentists should be involved in smoking cessation strategies