Fallacies about Water Pipe Use in Turksih University Students - What Might Be the Consequences?

Abstract

<b>Background:</b> The popularity of the narghile waterpipe, also referred to as hookah, shisha or hubble-bubblehas increased tremendously during the past few decades. The aim of this study was to expose perception ofnarghile among a representative sample of university students in Sakarya University campus. Materials and<br/><b>Methods</b>: Written approval was taken from the local education authority. An anonymous questionnaire which wasprepared by the investigators and contained 17 questions was administered. Nine of the questions were relatedto socio-demographic characteristics and eight were related to the students harm perceptions about waterpipe.A total of 1,320 questionnaries were received and after preliminary evaluation 1,255 (95.7%) were found to besuitable for evaluation. The data was evaluated in SPSS program by using percentages and averages. <br/><b>Results</b>:The mean±SD age of the students was 20.8±2.29 years (min 18, max 32). There were 864 (68.8%) females and391 (31.2%) males. A total of 6.3 % of the students (n=79) believed that waterpipe is not harmful because itssmoke does not burn the lungs. Almost one-third (n=318) think that the carcinogenic chemicals are filtered whilewaterpipe smoke passes from the water; 12.1 % of the students (n=152) checked “true” for the statement of“waterpipe smoke contains no nicotine”. It is seen that 14.0 % of the students (n=176) think waterpipe with fruit/aroma is healthier than plain waterpipe. <br/><b>Conclusions</b>: As a result of this study, it is found out that a substantialnumber of university students have false beliefs on harmful effects of waterpipe smoking.