Prevalence, patterns and knowledge of effects on health of smoking among medical students in Pakistan.

A questionnaire survey was conducted among all medical students with at least 2 years of medical education studying at 3 medical colleges in Punjab, Pakistan. Of the 1529 respondents (544 males and 985 females), 21.5% were ever smokers (smoked at least once in their lifetime): 9.1% current smokers (including 5.7% daily smokers), 0.7% ex-smokers and 11.7% occasional smokers. The proportions of ever smokers among males and females were 48.3% and 6.7% respectively, and of current smokers were 23.2% and 1.3%. The proportion of males and females smoking daily was 14.7% and 0.7%. The proportion of nonsmokers who knew about the addictive and harmful nature of cigarette smoking was higher than that among the smokers.