Electronic-cigarette smoking experience among adolescents

Abstract

Objectives: To investigate the level of awareness and contact routes to electronic cigarette (e-cigarette), and to identify significant factors that may affect adolescent use of e-cigarettes; this study explores the experience of e-cigarettes among adolescents.

Methods: Using the data from the 2008 Health Promotion Fund Project in Korea, we used a hierarchical logistic regression analysis to evaluate gender, level of school, family smoking, perception of peer influence, satisfaction in school life, and cigarette smoking experience as predictors of trying e-cigarettes among adolescents in five schools in Korea.

Results: Overall, 444 (10.2%) students responded as having seen or heard of e-cigarettes. Twenty-two (.5%) students reported as having used an e-cigarette. The contact routes of information on e-cigarettes were the Internet (249, 46.4%), friends (150, 27.9%), television (59, 11.0%), books (50, 9.3%), and others (29, 5.4%). The following factors were determined to be statistically significant predictors of e-cigarette experience: male gender, perception of peer influence, satisfaction in school life, and cigarette smoking experience.

Conclusions: In light of this fact, continuous attention needs to be paid on the marketing of e-cigarettes on Internet sites to prevent adolescents from being exposed to unsupported claims about e-cigarettes and to provide appropriate information on health effects.