Practices and attitudes towards tobacco use among the employees of a private organization in Nepal.
Tobacco use is considered as the symbol of adulthood and as a friend during stress and loneliness. It is an important part of Nepali society. With changing time trend, higher education, and awareness campaigns, people have become more conscious regarding tobacco use and its effects on health. Information and technology sector is considered one of the busiest sector. People are working at constant stress. Tobacco use is considered by many people as one of the ways for stress relief. A cross sectional study was conducted in a private organization. The main objective was to understand attitudes and practices of tobacco use among the employees. Among the participants 67% were males and 33% were females. Nearly 95% of employees have experience of tobacco use in any form and 5% of participant reported as tobacco non user. Eighty one percent of the participants were smokers. More than half (52%) use tobacco for coping the stress and 4.3% use during brainstorming. Sixty seven percent were aware of the harmful effects of tobacco on health. Inspite of knowledge about harmful effect of tobacco use, it is still prevalent mostly among those who lead stressful life. So continuation and reform of various health education programmes with special target on behavioural changes is much needed.