Abstract
BackgroundThe consumption of tobacco products has evolved to include more complex combinations of different products. We investigated the tobacco habits of a representative population of young Finnish male conscripts in order to evaluate the prevalence of dual use of cigarettes and snus as well as the transition from one tobacco product to another. In addition, we evaluated the correlation between the level of education and the use of cigarettes and snus.MethodsA questionnaire-based survey was carried out in three out of 17 garrisons among conscripts during their first week of service in 2014. A total of 1971 male conscripts were selected by simple random sampling of the 9013 males in the selected garrisons. Of them 1916 participated and filled in the questionnaire. The response rate was 97.2%. The questionnaire consisted of 25 questions including age, gender, basic education, use of tobacco products as well as questions assessing nicotine dependency.ResultsThe amount of dual users of cigarettes and snus was 21%. There was a higher probability of dual use of cigarettes and snus among smokers compared to snus users (p < 0.001). One third (35%) of former smokers reported daily snus use and over 40% of the former snus users smoked daily. One third (34%) of the participants reported snus usage and 14% of the study subjects used snus daily. 40% of the study population were smokers and over 25% smoked daily. Of the participants with basic educational background 57% smoked daily (p < 0.001), however, no association between snus and level of education was found (p = 0.69).ConclusionsThis study provides better understanding of the complex tobacco habits of young adult males. The simultaneous usage of multiple tobacco products as well as the high tendency to transition from one tobacco product to another should be taken into consideration when planning cessation interventions in health care settings and tobacco control policies at societal levels.
Highlights
The consumption of tobacco products has evolved to include more complex combinations of different products
There was a higher probability of dual use of cigarettes and snus among smokers compared to snus users
Transition from one tobacco product to another Our results showed that, 8% of the male conscripts had quit smoking, and of these 35% used snus daily, 13% occasionally, and 20% had quitted the use of snus
Summary
The consumption of tobacco products has evolved to include more complex combinations of different products. We investigated the tobacco habits of a representative population of young Finnish male conscripts in order to evaluate the prevalence of dual use of cigarettes and snus as well as the transition from one tobacco product to another. The consumption of tobacco products has evolved to include more complex tobacco habits and the dual use of different tobacco products, mainly cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, has become common [5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. The transition from the Swedish type low- nitrosamine smokeless tobacco (snus) to cigarettes and vice versa has mainly been studied in Sweden. Some research suggests that smokeless tobacco might initiate smoking [14,15,16]
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