KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE OF NERGELA SMOKING AMONG ATTENDEE IN CAFÉ IN ERBIL CITY

Nergela is a kind of tobacco smoking that depends on special instrument that is used to smoke specially made with tobacco that comes with different flavors. Assessment of knowledge and attitude of Nergela smokers regarding hazards of Nergila smoking are necessary to identify negative points. The aim of this study was to identify knowledge and attitudes of water pipe smoking among attendee in café and identify relationship between overall knowledge and socio demographic variables. Non-probability sample of 300Nergela smokers, who attend cafés in Erbil city, were used. The researcher has developed the questionnaire format as the study instrument for data collection. Reliability and validity of the tool was determined through a panel of experts (r=0.75). The SPSS program, version 23 was used to deal with data. P-value = 0.05 was considered significant. The study results revealed that most of water pipe smokers had fair knowledge and most of them had negative attitudes. More than half of the participants were within age group of 18-25 years. There were highly significant associations between marital status and residence of study sample with the overall knowledge at value 0.005 to 0.006 respectively. The participants had poor knowledge about the health risk of sharing water pipe smoking, and bad attitudes regarding the fruit flavor tobacco.