Evaluation of COPD awareness in university students

Abstract

Introduction: COPD is the third most common cause of death in the world, with high morbidity and mortality. It causes an increasing socioeconomic burden. Aim: In our study, it was aimed to evaluate the awareness and knowledge level of university students about COPD. Methods: To evaluate the knowledge level of 408 university students between the ages of 18-24 on COPD, 11-item COPD Awareness Questionnaire was used prepared by the Ministry of Health. This questionnaire included questions to evaluate the attitudes, triggering, diagnosis and treatment of COPD. Results: A total of 408 students with an 18-24-year-old age group were enrolled in the COPD Awareness Questionnaire in Istanbul. Of the participants, 313 (76.7%) were female and 95 (23.7%) were male. 93.4% of the students responded correctly to the question of “COPD is a disease related to lungs”. When questioned whether COPD was a treatable disease, 52.2% of respondents answered yes and 29.2% said they did not have any idea. 80% of the students answered correctly to the question of “The most important cause of COPD is smoking”, while 9.8% of them did not know. Conclusions: As a result of our study, it is known that COPD is a lung disease and the most important risk factor is smoking by the majority of university students in our country. It was seen that the students were not fully informed about the tests required for the diagnosis of COPD and whether it could be treated. Considering that this young population will make up the majority of the elderly population after 20-30 years, we believe that raising the awareness of young people in this age group will contribute to the increase of COPD awareness in our country.