CONFERENCE PROCEEDING
Perceived content, relationship with tobacco and self-reported reasons for e-cigarette use among adolescents in Europe - findings from ESPAD 2019
 
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1
Institute of Public Health of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia
 
2
National Research Council, Institute Of Clinical Physiology, Pisa, Italy
 
3
Department Of Epidemiology, Care And Public Health Research Institute (Caphri), Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
 
 
Publication date: 2023-10-08
 
 
Corresponding author
Biljana Kilibarda   

Institute of Public Health of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia
 
 
Tob. Prev. Cessation 2023;9(Supplement 2):A71
 
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Introduction:
A substantial number of e-cigarette users worldwide are adolescents and for many of them e-cigarette is the first contact with nicotine, often because their attractiveness. The objective of this analysis is to explore the reasons for trying, perceived content of e-cigarette and the relationship with tobacco at the onset of use among adolescents in Europe.

Material and Methods:
Data were obtained from European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) conducted in 2019 in 35 European countries on a total sample of 102,484 students born in 2003.

Results:
In 2019, almost every fourth (23%) 16 years old student in ESPAD countries never used tobacco but tried e-cigarettes. This indicator shows high variations across countries with the highest prevalence in Cyprus and Monaco (39%) and Spain and Lithuania (35%) and the lowest in Norway (11%) and North Macedonia and Montenegro (12%), Serbia (13%) and Croatia (14%). Significantly lower percentage (4.2%) of students regularly used tobacco when they first tried e-cigarette. Curiosity was the reason for trying e-cigarette for 30% of the total sample of students, and for 1.7% it was to stop smoking. Almost every third student (33%) in the total sample of students from 13 ESPAD countries that included this question in the survey, thought that the e-cigarette they used contained nicotine. The risk perception of e-cigarettes is low, with 6% of students perceiving trying e-cigarettes once or twice as a great risk.

Conclusions:
The results indicate that e-cigarettes are rarely used by adolescents to reduce harm and stop smoking and at the same time point out low risk perception and knowledge on e-cigarette content. Results call for interventions that would reduce attractiveness, raise awareness on the evidence-based findings about these products and at minimum restrict marketing and promotion of e-cigarette to ensure it is aimed at adults.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
eISSN:2459-3087
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