Smoking Cessation Among Nursing Students at a Local University Research Paper

Smoking Cessation Among Nursing Students at a Local University - Research Paper Example Therefore, the study secondarily aims to determine a suitable goal rate for this population considering nurses are already meeting the national objective. Problem Statement There is considerable research available regarding the ill health effects of smoking. In 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that five million people were killed – more than HIV/AIDS, or malaria together. Further, they reported that it is â€Å"the single most preventable cause of death in the world today† (WHO, 2008). Healthy People 2020, a report by the Surgeon General, suggest that a paramount objective regarding smoking is to implement policies to reduce tobacco use and initiation among youth and adults (HealthyPeople.gov, 2011). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services state that smoking cessation programs have been proven to work (2011). Currently, Nameless University does not have a smoking cessation program in place. In order to remove the access barrier that currently exists, a pilot study will test whether a smoking cessation program is feasible and effective to employ long-term. Purpose of the Study The overall purpose of this study is to encourage nursing students who smoke to cease smoking before they enter the medical workforce. Initially, this will be a pilot study to determine the effectiveness of the health promotion smoking cessation program. Additional pilot study goals include the following: (1) To study the outcomes by participants during and after health promotion training. (2) To study whether the implementation of the health promotion smoking cessation program achieved its objectives. (3) To study the factors and conditions affecting the success of the smoking cessation program. If the... This paper approves that the issue of smoking among nursing students has attracted attention throughout the world. It is important for nurse faculty to recognize the scope of the problem and to lend support to programs designed to promote smoking cessation. Nurse faculty possess knowledge and skills regarding health promotion, and they should consider working collaboratively with student health service personnel to promote smoking cessation on their respective campuses. Research suggests that many college students want to quit smoking. Faculty should seize opportunities to support students in this effort and to raise awareness of services available to help student smokers quit. The relatively less-encouraging smoking data among nursing students suggest the need to promote tobacco education and intervention efforts in this population. This report makes a conclusion that health professional schools, public health organisations and education officials should discourage tobacco use among health professionals and work together to design and implement programmes that train all health professionals in effective cessation counselling techniques. Given the concerns as to tobacco smoking of students who are supposed to be advocates for healthy lifestyle, further investigations could be of help to determine why student nurses do not want to cease their smoking habits. The formulation of an internationally standardized explanation for tobacco smoking among this demographic may be of use to help standardize succeeding researches on cigarette smoking.