Tobacco usage among university students

The thesis consists of three parts. The first part presents the main tobacco components and explores the history of its use. Then it looks into the main reasons for starting to smoke among young people and attempts to establish whether smoking is a mere habit or an actual tobacco addiction. It transpired that different authors have conflicting opinions about this question. Moreover, the thesis tries to determine why so many students smoke, what attracts them to smoking and why many of them find it so difficult to quit. The second part of the thesis deals with the four-phase process of developing into a smoker, which was elaborated by Čop, Perina, Hudek and Stergar, and defines different categories of smokers. Moreover, it presents motivational procedures while quitting and proposes some useful guidelines that may help both young and older smokers quit. The empirical part focuses on the factors and circumstances that are connected to whether a person starts smoking or not. It also explores how many students think about quitting and how many have already quit, which methods they chose or would choose if they decided to stop. We were also interested in their opinion on what should be done and what laws should be adopted in Slovenia to curb the habit among young people. Data was obtained using a survey questionnaire. Results indicate that there are no statistically significant differences in proneness to smoking among students with regard to where they live, their family structure, average grade, or education of their parents. However, statistically significant differences were observed in proneness to smoking with regard to the financial situation of the family, meaning that students who are less satisfied with the financial situation are more inclined to start smoking