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Health Literacy and Smoking Habits Among a Sample of Jordanian University Students

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Abstract

Limited health literacy is a significant predictor of engaging in unhealthy behaviors. However, the literature regarding the association between health literacy and smoking in university students is very limited. Thus, this study was conducted to examine the association between university students' health literacy and smoking habits. A cross-sectional design was used. A sample of university students (N = 327) was recruited to conduct this study. Data collection was performed using a demographics questionnaire and the health literacy questionnaire. AMOS was used to conduct data analysis using structural equation modeling analysis with maximum likelihood estimation. Different versions of the structural model were compared and evaluated based on specific fit indices criteria. The results showed that 30% of the participants were current smokers. Smoking cigarettes was the most common type of smoking in this study, and 23.1% of the participants were current users of two or more types of smoking (e.g., cigarettes and hookah). The structural model with three latent variables (health literacy, smoking status and type, and smoking frequency and duration) was the one that best fit the data; the model fit indices were X2 = 305.84, df = 102, p < .001; RMSEA = .068; CFI = .95; CMIN/df = 2.51; TLI = .929; and AIC = 355.75. A single standard deviation increase of health literacy causes .38 decrease in smoking status and type and .13 decrease of smoking frequency and duration. The results showed that health literacy is negatively associated with smoking in a sample of Jordanian university students.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from Jordan University of Science and Technology, but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of Jordan University of Science and Technology.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are gratefully thankful to the Deanship of Research at Jordan University of Science and Technology for facilitating the process of conducting this research. We would also like to thank the participants for their commitment throughout the course of conducting this study.

Funding

This study was fully supported by the Deanship of Scientific Research, Jordan University of Science and Technology (Grant ID: 20190480).

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

JR: conception of the research idea, building the overall study design, and supervising the data collection. He performed the data analysis and prepared this manuscript. MA: contributed to the conception of the main idea, made substantial contribution toward preparing the data collection tools, and assisted with the data analysis. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jehad A. Rababah.

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Conflicts of interest

The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

Ethical Approval

The approval of the institutional review board (IRB) was obtained from Jordan University of Science and Technology prior to conducting this study (ID #: 40/126/2019).

Informed Consent

All patients signed an informed consent form before their inclusion in the study.

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Not applicable.

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Rababah, J.A., Al-Hammouri, M.M. Health Literacy and Smoking Habits Among a Sample of Jordanian University Students. J Community Health 48, 30–37 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-022-01139-8

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