The School of Nursing has launched the project Healthy University, which has as goal promote good lifestyle habits among university students. Their biggest concern? That students smoke more than adults usually do. While the latter are doing their best to quit, young people start smoking at an earlier age. But above all, in the university stage, people who smoke little, tend to increase the dose and many become regular smokers. According to those responsible for project, such as Idoia Parnavila, this is a period of risk for young people, since the company has a great influence, both friends who smoke regularly and those who do so sporadically in social events. "We think that the benefits will be greater if university students manage to quit now ─affirms Idoia─ , and for this reason, we decided to work with young people."

This initiative seeks to evaluate the effectiveness and viability of a smoking cessation program specifically designed for university students between the ages of 18 and 24. This project, which began in 2001, has been divided into three phases, and thanks to the team that implemented it, the University became a smoke-free center. At this time, it may seem unthinkable to many that smoking would be allowed in classrooms or in the corridors of the School, but until ten years ago it was a reality. The University of Navarra, with the initiative of promote a smoke-free space, became a pioneer in the promotion of health activities, achieving a considerable reduction of exhibition to tobacco smoke, both for employees and students.

Program for university students

"In this third phase we are focusing on university students. We have designed a smoking cessation program more specifically for them and what we want to check during these six months is whether it is really effective, so that we can then install it at the University, and so that all students can benefit from it," explained Idoia Pardavila.

Within this experiment that will end in May, the School of Nursing has conducted campaigns to promote healthy habits among smokers, such as measuring expired carbon monoxide to all those students who have been interested. "This is a campaign so that all those who really want to quit smoking, know that they can do it. Here we help them to know who to turn to and what they have to do if they want to quit," says Idoia Parnavila, who says that, in one day, more than 200 students came to get information and have the test done.

Many students want to know about this project because they are really concerned about this problem. Although most of the pathologies are common to men and women, such as lung cancer or cardiovascular diseases, there is a difference in terms of fertility, since smoking can cause difficulties in having children. In addition, according to those responsible, tobacco ages a lot, and for this reason, women are usually concerned about their skin, as it dries out more and causes wrinkles to appear at an earlier age, and men are more concerned about the way in which it affects them when they do sports.

Eduardo Entrala del Valle, a first-year student of Law and Business Administration, explains that he thinks this is a great initiative on the part of the University:"I think that sometimes young people are not aware that what we are ingesting is more harmful than we think. That is what many students think, and they also recognize that it is more difficult than it seems to quit. Onar Berrade, a 2nd year student of advertising and Public Relations, talks about this problem: "I have a lot of friends who smoke a lot, some of them try to quit but they can't and neither can the environment financial aid".

The aim of this program is for university students to quit smoking, and for this reason, they will have the support of experts at financial aid and the necessary tools to achieve this. María Cutín Laguna, a 4th year nursing student, is a university student who has opted for this project: "I wanted to participate because I am a frequent smoker, and I think it is an important initiative for students. Although some of us do not contemplate the idea of quitting smoking at this time, in the long run, after the sessions that will be given during these six months, I hope it will be a very positive experience, in which they will help us with tools and methods to be able to quit". For all those interested in taking part in this study, it is necessary to smoke at least one cigarette a week. Volunteers will have to attend two or four face-to-face sessions, depending on group, during the 2013-2014 academic year.

However, experts recognize that there still need to be more campaigns and programs in place to promote healthy habits. Idoia Parnavila explains the importance of university students getting involved in these initiatives: "This is a population whose habits will last a lifetime and will probably have a great influence on society. They are university students who will later become politicians, managers in companies, and others will be communicators and will promote an image to society as a whole by disseminating their own habits. It is important that they know more about this problem and, therefore, we must support from the University this campaign subject ".