title: Smokeless tobacco use among big ten wrestlers and selected associated factors.
abstract: The use of smokeless tobacco (ST) by 234 Big Ten intercollegiate wrestlers was surveyed, with a special interest in determining their beliefs about ST health consequences and discriminators of ST use. Self-reported ST use was validated by sputum analysis of a selected team. Twenty-eight percent of the wrestlers were current, regular ST users. This is well above the national norm. Over 42% of the wrestlers had used some form of ST in the past year. Evidence indicates that three variables (prior cigarette smoking, receiving a free ST sample, and alcohol consumption) were strong discriminators of ST use.
authors.affiliation: Allied Health Department, Slippery Rock University, Pennsylvania 16057, USA.
authors.forename: S E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Hannam
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015438:Health Behavior; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010947:Plants, Toxic; D014029:Tobacco Use Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology*; D014030:Tobacco, Smokeless; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D014952:Wrestling / Q000523:psychology*