Ayoub A. Innabi^1,, Dina A. Ammari¹, Wa'el J. K. Tuqan¹

Background: Jordan, a Middle Eastern country, has a high prevalence rate of smoking. However, little research was done to evaluate knowledge of smoking-related cancers in the region. Objective: To assess knowledge of smoking-related cancers among Jordanian university students. Design: Cross-sectional study conducted in July, 2013, using a self-administered online questionnaire. The questionnaire was sent to students from University of Jordan. Results: The final sample consisted of 230 students. The majority of participants (98.7%) were aware that smoking has harmful health effects and (95.7%) agreed that smoking causes cancer. Most of the participants agreed that smoking causes lung cancer (97.8%), oral cancer (83.0%), laryngeal cancer (82.6%), pharyngeal cancer (80.0%), and esophageal cancer (63.0%), while less than half of the participant thought that smoking causes AML (46.1%), stomach cancer (36.1%), kidney cancer (32.6%), cervical cancer (19.6%), pancreatic cancer (19.1%), and bladder cancer (14.8%). Females showed more knowledge about smoking-related cancers than males (p < 0.05) but the there was no significant difference between smokers and non-smokers. Conclusion: These findings show that most of the students know that lung cancer is caused by smoking. However, there is a lower knowledge of other smoking-related cancers. Our study suggests that more efforts should be done to increase the awareness of the adverse health hazards of smoking especially that are related to cancer.

smoking, awareness, knowledge, smoking-related cancers, university students, Jordan