Awareness and Attitude toward Smoking E-Cigarettes (Vape) among Smokers in Saudi Arabia 2017

Karbouji, Mohammad Ali; Abduldaem, Alhasan Mohamed; Allogmani, Abdulrahman Muslim; Alharbi, Ahmad Salem; Alnozha, Omar; Al-Zalabani, Abdulmohsen H.

doi:10.12816/0044646

Awareness and Attitude toward Smoking E-Cigarettes (Vape) among Smokers in Saudi Arabia 2017

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

College of Medicine, Taibah University, Almadinah Almunawarah, Saudi Arabia

10.12816/0044646

Abstract

Background:E-cigarettes was described as battery-operated products designed to deliver nicotine. Its use is rapidly increasing worldwide specially among youth owing to marketing and media which play a major important role in making people believe that smoking vape is less harmful than the tobacco cigarettes. However, chemical analysis of e-cigarettes juices has shown that many carcinogens present in cigarette smoke are also found in a range of e-cigarette products. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the awareness and the attitude toward the risk of smoking e-cigarettes vape among smokers in Saudi Arabia.
Method: this cross-sectional study involved 1404 individual living in Saudi Arabia. Adult smoker participants involved in this study were in the age range 18-60 years old. A self-administrated web-based questionnaire that include questions about smoking e-cigarettes vape was used to collect data. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS version 22.0.
Result: our sample study involved 95% males and 5% females. 68.9% were using e-cigarette, with 58.7% admit to use it daily. 31.1% had never experienced vaping. Those who thought that vaping is absolutely safe represented 13.7% of our sample study. While 67.5% regarded it dangerous.
Conclusion: there was a high degree of awareness among Saudis about e-cigarettes and vaping, which highlights the importance of health programmes as well as media targeting youth and the government role toward the Saudis health.

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