The awareness of lung cancer risk factors among health-related students at Umm Al Qura University in Makkah, Saudi Arabia

Background: Lung cancer has a highly significant rate of mortality in both genders nationally and globally. A variety of risk factors are linked to lung cancer; however, smoking is the most significant one. Countless research has looked into the public's knowledge of lung cancer and its risk factors; however, few studies have targeted health students, which demands further investigation. Our study surveys health students from different health-related colleges in the Makkah region of western Saudi Arabia. We compare the knowledge and awareness of lung cancer risk factors and recommend strategies to improve this knowledge gap. Methodology: A survey-based study was carried out among health-related students in different medical colleges at Umm Al-Qura University between December 2020 and January 2021. Results: A total of 309 students participated in the current study. The mean age of participants was 22.2 +/- 1.33 years; 244 (67.4%) participants were male and 118 (32.6%) were female. The majority of respondents were fifth-year students, while intern students were the least represented. The majority of students did not smoke. Furthermore, our finding suggests that the majority of students have poor knowledge of lung cancers' risk factors (76.6%). Conclusion: Our research found that the students had a low level of knowledge. Furthermore, only gender showed a strong correlation with the level of awareness and knowledge, out of all the variables studied.