Half of youth e-cigarette users intend to quit

(HealthDay)—More than half of youth current electronic cigarette users report intention to quit vaping, while more than two-thirds report past-year vaping quit attempts, according to a study published online Aug. 18 in Pediatrics.

Hongying Dai, Ph.D., from University of Nebraska in Omaha, used data from the 2020 National Youth Tobacco Survey (1,660 adolescents, typically aged 11 to 18 years) to assess the prevalence of youth intention to quit vaping, past-year quit attempts, and the frequency of quit attempts.

Dai found that 53.4 percent of current e-cigarette users reported intention to quit vaping, while 67.4 percent reported having tried to quit vaping. Girls had a lower intention to quit versus boys (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.7), as did users of a modifiable system (versus disposable e-cigarettes: aOR, 0.4) and dual or poly users (versus sole e-cigarette use: aOR, 0.7). There was a positive association between e-cigarette harm perception and intention to quit (aOR, 2.2) and past-year quit attempts (aOR, 1.6). Higher odds of past-year quit attempts were seen among adolescents who vaped because of curiosity (aOR, 1.4), whereas those who used e-cigarettes to disguise vaping had a lower likelihood of intention to quit (aOR, 0.4) and past-year quit attempts (aOR, 0.7). The average number of past-year quit attempts was 5.3.

"The study findings inform the development of multifaceted vaping cessation programs to take sex, e-cigarette devices, vaping reasons and patterns, harm perception, and nicotine dependence into account," Dai writes.

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