Smoking Behaviors and Viewpoints of Smoking by Erciyes University, Faculty of Theology Students

Religious beliefs and attitudes contribute to a healthy life by helping individuals avoiding negative behaviors that can affect health. In this respect, clergymen can play an important role in smoking control by being models for the society. This study was conducted to evaluate smoking situations and views on cigarette use by Erciyes University, Faculty of Theology students. In this cross-sectional descriptive research, a questionnaire was conducted with the first and last year students studying in the Faculty of Theology (305). 88.2% of the students (97.0% of the women and 69.6% of the men) have never smoked; 6.9% of them (3.0% freshmen/16.0% senior students) still smoke and 4.9% of them have quit smoking. 81.0% of the smokers have thought of quitting smoking and 47.6% of them have tried to quit smoking. 70.6% of those thinking of quitting smoking stated that religion is motivating their thought of quitting smoking. 73.8% of the students expressed that religious sensitivity could affect smoking, 54.4% stated that smoking was an abomination to religion and 43.3% expressed that religion totally forbids smoking. Some measures need to be taken for fight against smoking, a global and preventable problem. Countries make legislative regulations to solve this problem and in addition to this, individuals such as clergymen and educators should also be mindful for the solution of this problem. © 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.