Influence of Knowledge and Attitudes on Youth Smoking in Rural Areas of the Mymensigh Districts of Bangladesh: A Cross-Sectional Study

The development of a country is strongly influenced by a higher smoking rate among the young population. Understanding knowledge and attitudes regarding smoking among young people lies at the heart of effective tobacco control policies. Bangladesh is a large, low-income country in South Asia with a high rate of youth smoking. As yet, however, little attention has been paid to knowledge and attitudes among rural youth. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 385 youth males from the rural Mymensingh district of Bangladesh aged 15 to 24 were interviewed face-to-face. Univariate distribution (i.e., frequency analysis), bivariate analysis (i.e., Chi-square tests), and multivariate analysis (i.e., binary logistic regression model) were performed to determine the influence of knowledge and attitudes on youth male smoking. The percentage of youth smoking is 40.3 with knowledge and attitudes revealed as the more influential factors of smoking. For example, the chance of being a smoker with a satisfactory knowledge score is significantly lower than their counterparts (Odds ratio [OR]: 0.47 [0.30, 0.70]). Similarly, respondents with satisfactory attitudes scores have a significantly lower chance (OR: 0.40 [0.26, 0.61]) to be a smoker than those having an unsatisfactory score. This study exposes the influences of knowledge and attitudes among the youth toward smoking in rural parts of the Mymensingh district of Bangladesh. The findings and recommendations of this study will be more helpful to the authorities in revising the existing smoking policies accordingly to reduce and prevent youth smoking for the betterment of the country.