Prevalence of Tobacco Use among School Teachers in Lucknow: A Cross Sectional Study.

Background: Teachers are in close contact with students and students follow their teachers. Therefore, ill effects of tobacco can be promoted by them among children. However; what is still lacking is the adequate training of the teachers in relation to tobacco prohibition programs. So, study was done to assess the prevalence of tobacco use among school teachers in Lucknow. Materials and Methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted among primary and secondary school teachers of Lucknow. From each zone (East, West, North, South, and Central) three schools were selected randomly. Then from each selected school 10 Teachers aged 21 to 60 years were selected by simple random sampling technique. Teachers who gave consent were selected and provided with a questionnaire (Modified Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence) to record their tobacco habits in smoking and smoke-less forms. Subjects with any systemic disease or not willing to participate and absent on the day of survey were excluded from the study. Analysis was done using SPSS software and number and percentage distributions were used to express the data. Results: In our study total participants were 150 in which 110 (73.33%) were male and 40 (26.66%) were female subjects. Out of 150 study subjects 30(20%) subjects admitted using tobacco. Out of which, 18(12%) were smoking and 12(8%) were using smokeless tobacco. The overall dependence level of the 30(20%) subjects out of 150 having the habit of tobacco smoking was high in 7(4.66%) subjects, very high in 4(2.66%) subjects, moderate in 3(2%) subjects, very low in 3(2%) subjects and low in 1(0.66%) subjects. Whereas, the subjects having the habit of using smokeless tobacco, dependency level was found to be high in 5(3.33%), very high in 3(2%), very low in 2(1.33%), moderate in 1(0.66%) and low in 1(0.66%) subjects. Conclusion: Prevalence of tobacco use among school teachers was found to be low but nicotine dependence level for both smoking and smokeless tobacco habits were found to be high in primary and secondary school teachers in Lucknow. So, awareness and motivation programmes for tobacco cessation among school teachers should regularly be conducted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]