Abstract
BackgroundData on electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use among health professional students, who can play a central role in promoting healthy habits and smoking cessation, are sparse. Moreover, the association between e-cigarettes and smoking habits is still debated. The present study aimed to investigate the diffusion of e-cigarette use among nursing students in north-eastern Italy and explore its association with tobacco smoking.MethodsIn 2015, a questionnaire focused on e-cigarette use and tobacco smoking habits was anonymously administered to 2020 students attending nursing courses held by Verona University in 5 different centres. Of these students, 1463 (72.4%) answered the questionnaire. The influence of e-cigarette ever use on both tobacco smoking initiation in all subjects and smoking cessation among ever smokers was investigated by multivariable logistic models.ResultsMost responders were female (77.1%), and the mean (SD) age was 23.2 (4.2) years. Nearly all students (94.7%) had heard about e-cigarettes. Approximately one-third (30.3, 95% CI 27.9–32.7%) had ever used e-cigarettes, but only 2.1% (1.5–3.0%) had used e-cigarettes in the last month. Very few (2.1%) of those responders who had never used e-cigarettes were willing to try them. Prevalence values were much higher for tobacco smoking: 40.9% of responders reported being current tobacco smokers, and 10.1% reported being past smokers. Ever use and current use of e-cigarettes were reported by 57.2 and 4.4% of current tobacco smokers and by 12.0 and 0.6% of never or past smokers, respectively (p < 0.001). In multivariable analysis, students who ever used e-cigarettes had 13 times greater odds of being an ever tobacco smoker than never users, whereas they had three times lower odds of being a former smoker.Only 26 students were currently using both electronic and tobacco cigarettes, and most declared that they used e-cigarettes to stop or reduce tobacco smoking. Of note, only three students reported that they had completely stopped smoking thanks to e-cigarette use.ConclusionUse of e-cigarettes seemed to be rather rare among Italian nursing students and was mainly restricted to current smokers. E-cigarette use was not associated with smoking cessation in nursing students.
Highlights
Data on electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use among health professional students, who can play a central role in promoting healthy habits and smoking cessation, are sparse
The European Respiratory Society (ERS) stated that there was no evidence that e-cigarettes could be safer than tobacco in the long term, it was acknowledged that potentially toxic chemicals were fewer and less concentrated in e-cigarette aerosols than in conventional cigarettes [6]
Prevalence values were much higher for tobacco smoking: 591 out of 1444 responders (40.9, 95% CI 38.4–43.5%) reported that they were currently smokers
Summary
Data on electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use among health professional students, who can play a central role in promoting healthy habits and smoking cessation, are sparse. The present study aimed to investigate the diffusion of e-cigarette use among nursing students in north-eastern Italy and explore its association with tobacco smoking. The idea that e-cigarette use is safer than tobacco smoking is very common in the world population, as conditioned by manufacturers’ advertisements. According to the same ERS report, “there is not enough evidence to support that e-cigarettes are an aid to smoking cessation”, and “there is conflicting data that use of e-cigarettes results in a renormalisation of smoking behaviour or for the gateway hypothesis” [6]. Other studies supported the notion that e-cigarettes could not be considered harmless, despite being less noxious than conventional tobacco cigarettes [7], because they contained several unstudied and unregulated compounds [8]
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