Relationship between trying an electronic cigarette and subsequent cigarette experimentation in Scottish adolescents : a cohort study
Abstract
Background This study examines whether young never smokers in Scotland, UK, who have tried an e-cigarette are more likely than those who have not, to try a cigarette during the following year. Methods Prospective cohort survey conducted in four high schools in Scotland, UK during February/March 2015 (n=3807) with follow-up 1 year later. All pupils (age 11–18) were surveyed. Response rates were high in both years (87% in 2015) and 2680/3807 (70.4%) of the original cohort completed the follow-up survey. Analysis was restricted to baseline ‘never smokers’ (n=3001/3807), 2125 of whom were available to follow-up (70.8%). Results At baseline, 183 of 2125 (8.6%) never smokers had tried an e-cigarette and 1942 had not. Of the young people who had not tried an e-cigarette at baseline, 249 (12.8%) went on to try smoking a cigarette by follow-up. This compares with 74 (40.4%) of those who had tried an e-cigarette at baseline. This effect remained significant in a logistic regression model adjusted for smoking susceptibility, having friends who smoke, family members’ smoking status, age, sex, family affluence score, ethnic group and school (adjusted OR 2.42 (95% CI 1.63 to 3.60)). There was a significant interaction between e-cigarette use and smoking susceptibility and between e-cigarette use and smoking within the friendship group. Conclusions Young never smokers are more likely to experiment with cigarettes if they have tried an e-cigarette. Causality cannot be inferred, but continued close monitoring of e-cigarette use in young people is warranted.
Citation
Best , C , Haseen , F , Currie , D , Ozakinci , G , MacKintosh , A M , Stead , M , Eadie , D , MacGregor , A , Pearce , J , Amos , A , Frank , J & Haw , S 2018 , ' Relationship between trying an electronic cigarette and subsequent cigarette experimentation in Scottish adolescents : a cohort study ' , Tobacco Control , vol. 27 , no. 4 , pp. 373-378 . https://doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2017-053691
Publication
Tobacco Control
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0964-4563Type
Journal article
Rights
© Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Description
This project was funded by the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) PHR project 10/3000/07.Collections
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