The question “would UK smokers welcome NHS vaping support” is studied in a new report.
Published on Sage Journals here – “Medicalisation of vaping in the UK? E-cigarette users’ perspectives on the merging of commercial and medical routes to vaping”
The purpose of this study is to assess whether commercially purchased products or medically supplied vapes would be preferable to current smokers.
Study Methods
The study used data collected between March 2018 and March 2019 from the “E-cigarettes Trajectories Study” (ECTra) which explored the role of e-cigarettes in preventing smoking relapses.
184 participants took part in the second study phase which followed on from the original study in 2016-2017.
Only adults (18 years old or over) were eligible to take part and they must have attempted to use vapes to quit smoking. Also it was only confined to those resident in the UK.
The final sample was 135 participants who were eligible and 37 were interviewed (face to face or by telephone) and 99 took part in the online survey.
Questions were asked to participants related to their opinion of various interventions such as partnerships working with the health care sector and vaping industry. The full interventions and their results are in the image below.
Participants were asked to rate how helpful different interventions would have been for them (or others) to stay vaping and off cigarettes.
The four main interventions that are applicable to the article are:
- Healthcare practitioner signposting to a vape shop
- Vape shop voucher schemes
- In-house vape shop smoking cessation behavioural support
- The possible plans for e-cigarettes to be available on prescription
Also there was an area for respondents to add their explanations to their responses.
Below is an image showing the questionnaire in written form.
Results
The most popular intervention was the informal referral from a Health Care Practitioner (HCP) to a local vape shop with 77% stating it would be very or extremely helpful to support themselves or others to stop smoking.
66.5% believed that receiving a voucher to aid purchase of vaping equipment from a HCP to spend at a local vape store would have been very or extremely helpful.
56% stated that e-cigarettes being available on prescription would have been very or extremely helpful. However there were the most rejections (17.2%) of this method as being not at all helpful.
Finally smoking support in a vape store had mixed results with 38.1% saying it would be extremely or very useful.
The results were then broken down into different demographics – which of course you can view in the original article.
Conclusions
It seems that members of the Health Care profession referring people to vape stores would aid many smokers who wish to try vaping to quit smoking. The addition of vouchers to assist purchasing equipment would increase the chances of a successful quit attempt further.
The document states…
“This research suggests that, from e-cigarette users’ perspectives, medical routes to vaping potentially offer some benefits in terms of reassurance about safety and additional support, but the implementation of interventions should not limit consumer choice as different approaches satisfy different needs for adult smoking cessation and personal preferences”
The importance of making sure this does not encourage youth vaping rates to increase is also addressed…
“There are concerns, however, about the increase in youth vaping, and measures have been suggested to restrict marketing practices to make the products less appealing to children. Any future tobacco control measures involving e-cigarettes need to be evaluated for both their impact on smoking cessation and prevention of youth uptake of vaping.”
Also the document backs up the UK Government’s “Swap To Stop” proposal…
“Medical routes to vaping were acceptable to this group of current, predominantly exclusive vapers and were perceived to be potentially of help if they had been available when they were attempting to quit smoking. This supports the implementation of the proposed ‘swap to stop’ scheme, which will be the biggest smoking cessation scheme involving the English healthcare sector and the vaping industry to date. Further evaluation is needed to establish how local authorities can best implement the scheme (in terms of product choice and delivery methods) to target smokers from minority and disadvantaged groups where there is the highest smoking prevalence.”
I believe that UK Smokers would indeed welcome NHS Vaping Support – and this report has done all the hard work to prove which interventions would work best.
Also HCP’s promoting vaping as an option might help reduce the fears of vaping that have been drummed up in the media lately.
Even better the data has been supplied by people living through that circumstance. Excellent work!
Related Tweets
Always good to have the views of people with #livedexperience
Medicalisation of vaping in the UK? E-cigarette users’ perspectives on the merging of commercial and medical routes to vaping – E Ward, L Dawkins, R Holland, I Pope, C Notley, 2023 https://t.co/yIHqfaJm3d
— Louise (@grannylouisa) August 8, 2023
Check out our new paper led by Dr Emma Ward: Medicalisation of vaping in the UK? E-cigarette users’ perspectives on the merging of commercial and medical routes to vaping – E Ward, L Dawkins, R Holland, I Pope, C Notley, 2023 https://t.co/J4KjRmO85g
— AddictionResearchUEA (@AddictionUea) August 7, 2023
“People who vape believe they have benefited from being able to choose vaping products in shops to get the right mix of device and flavors to work best for them” https://t.co/YZqydVsvHu
— NNA Ireland (@IrelandNna) August 8, 2023
“the research also shows that accessing vapes via the NHS might not be appealing to everyone, because some people don’t see e-cigarettes as treatments but more as consumer products that they can shop for themselves.” https://t.co/8ry97YfjxP
— NNAlliance (@NNAlliance) August 8, 2023
