. Deepthi Athuluru; . Chandrasekhara Reddy; . K. M. Sudhir, Krishna Kumar; . Sreenivasulu Gomasani; . Sreenivas Nagarakanti
Volume 8, Issue 10 , October 2018, , Pages 1-8
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Indian national law namely Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA)exists since 2003 and aims at protecting all the people in our country, but smoking is still ...
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INTRODUCTION: Indian national law namely Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA)exists since 2003 and aims at protecting all the people in our country, but smoking is still prevalentamong people. This study was aimed to assess awareness, attitudes, and practices regardingprohibition of sale of tobacco products near educational institutions of Nellore city, India.MATERIALS AND METHODS: A descriptive cross‑sectional study was conducted in degreecolleges of Nellore city of Andhra Pradesh. The study population includes institutional personnel(student, teaching staff, nonteaching staff, and workers) of selected degree colleges of Nellore city.A structured questionnaire was designed for this study which was validated by Davis criteria; reliabilitywas assessed by test–retest design. The questionnaire was divided into five parts consisting ofdemographic details (age and gender), smoking behavior, knowledge about tobacco control laws,attitudes toward the law and policies, and practices followed in the institution. Logistic regressionanalysis was used to find out the association between different independent variables to tobaccousage among institutional personnel.RESULTS: Among the study population (n = 400 [100%]), 75.8% of the teaching staff do not knowthat there should be a board in the institution saying that “sale of tobacco product in an area withinthe radius of 100 m of educational institution is strictly prohibited,” 82.2% of the study population werenot aware to whom should they report, 96.3% of the study population accepted that strict executionof COTPA law saves life, the participants who answered no to strict implementation of COTPA law,and to punish the person who is violating the COTPA law are susceptible to 0.28, and 0.14 timesgreater odds to be a smokeless tobacco user, respectively.CONCLUSION: The study concluded that there was lack of knowledge about smoke‑free legislationamong the study population and a high support for strict implementation of COTPA.
