Score One For Vapes In Quitting Smoking

Some smokers who said they had no intention of quitting ended up doing so after starting to use e-cigarettes, according to government survey data.

Among daily smokers followed up to 5 years – all declared when enrolling in the study that they intended to continue smoking and that they did not use e-cigarettes – 28% of those who started using e-cigarettes daily and then quit regular cigarettes (95% CI 15.2% -45.9%), compared to a quit rate of 5.8% (95% CI 4, 7% to 7.2%) for those who have never used nicotine vaping products, reported Karin A. Kasza, PhD, of the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York, and colleagues at JAMA network open.

A similar pattern was observed for the outcome of stopping daily smoking (i.e., they continued to smoke but not every day), with about 46% of those who started smoking electronic cigarettes becoming intermittent smokers, compared to 10% of smokers who have avoided e-cigarettes. cigarette consumption during follow-up.

“These results support the consideration of smokers who do not plan to quit when assessing the potential risk-benefit of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation in the population,” Kasza and colleagues concluded.

The study drew on data from the NIH-funded study Smoking and Population Health Assessment Study (PATH) covering 2014 to 2019, during which participants were interviewed several times.

Notably, however, only 2.4% of study participants decided to start using e-cigarettes daily after joining. Another 6.2% used them more irregularly, and this group did not show significantly higher rates of complete quitting or non-daily smoking than those who did not use vaping products.

So while the study shows that e-cigarettes can help quit smoking, it’s also further evidence that the vast majority of smokers who say they plan to continue smoking do just that.

Study details

Kasza and her colleagues focused on the PATH participants who were daily smokers and did not use e-cigarettes at all when they joined the study. A total of 1,600 participants qualified for inclusion, which contributed 2,489 serial data points in total. PATH was designed to be representative of the entire population by age and other major demographic characteristics. Responses were weighted to reflect population norms in 2013-2014 to account for tracking losses and uneven response rates over time.

Participants conducted virtual computer interviews in four successive waves ending in November 2019. By that time, 908 of the original 1,600 had been lost to follow-up.

Questions from the survey included: “Do you ever plan to quit (cigarettes / tobacco) for good?” “; “Do you use (electronic cigarettes) now” with options for tracking on frequency (daily, some days, never); and two questions on smoking in the previous and current year, including frequency.

The researchers conducted a sensitivity analysis excluding a few respondents who missed the third interview but returned for the fourth; the results were very similar to those of the primary analysis.

Since this was not a randomized trial and the participants made their own decisions about whether or not to start using e-cigarettes, the potential for unmeasured confusion was significant. Additionally, the authors noted that they did not examine changes in “intentions to quit smoking” over time and whether these changes were associated with actual rates of quitting smoking. The study relied entirely on participants’ self-reports regarding smoking habits and e-cigarette use. Finally, Kasza and her colleagues did not determine how many participants who said they quit smoking later resumed or quit again after an initial relapse.