Attitudes of Undergraduate Pharmacy Students towards Alcohol and Smoking

Lenka Syrovcová, Kateřina Venderová, Peter Višňovský (visnovsk@faf.cuni.cz)

Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Králové, Czech Republic

Summary

The goal of the study was to try to record the number of smokers and alcohol consumers at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Charles University in Hradec Králové at the beginning of the academic year 2000/2001. A standard questionnaire was used. As a target group, there were 150 first- and 103 third-year students. In case of the first-year students, the age ranged between 18 and 26 years (the mean age was 19.3 years), 81 % were females and 19 % males and in the group of the third-year students, their age ranged between 19 and 30 years (the mean age was 20.9 years) and the ratio between males and females was similar to the first-year students.

In both groups, most of the students were non-smokers (70 %); in the first year, there were 6.0 % regular smokers and in the third year it was 2.9 %. 16 % of the students smoke occasionally in the first year of study and 22.3 % in their third year. The students prefer wine; for more than 50 % of the students drinking spirits is exceptional. 18 % of the students first got into contact with alcohol at the age of 15 and 15 % of them at the age of 16. So far, one third of them has never got drunk and about 65 % of the students did not get drunk during the last four weeks; 7 % of the third and first year students got drunk two or three times during this period of time. The financial support of most of the students was more than 50 % had 200 Kč and approximately 20 % 500 Kč per week, so they had more possibilities to buy cigarettes and alcohol.