Washington D.C.: In a bid to understand the growing use of e-cigarettes among youth, researchers have analysed the factors that influence adolescents to use it frequently.
In the Public Health Nursing study of 1,556 adolescents in Korea, 55.1 per cent reported that they had used e-cigarettes for 6 to 30 days in the past month and 44.9 per cent used them from 1 to 5 days.
The belief of e-cigarettes being less harmful than tobacco cigarettes is one of the major factors behind the growing use.
The other reasons include the easy availability of e-cigarettes, and that they have various added flavours to it. Also, frequent users were more likely to have a higher weekly allowance, less likely to live with family, and more likely to be exposed to second-hand smoke at home.
"Due to the characteristics of e-cigarettes, such as ease of purchase and the addition of taste and flavouring, the risk of continued use in adolescents is particularly high," said corresponding author Hyunmi Son, PhD, RN, an associate professor at Pusan National University, in South Korea.
