Abstract
Introduction: Electronic cigarettes have rapidly gained in popularity over the past five years. However, their safety and efficacy for smoking cessation/reduction remains controversial. Prevalence and predictors of their use amongst COPD patients is not known.
Aims and Objectives: Describe the prevalence and predictors of e-cigarette use in a primary care COPD population.
Methods: Cross sectional analysis of questionnaire data from The Birmingham COPD Cohort. We described prevalence of ever use of e-cigarettes among diagnosed COPD patients by demographic/clinical factors and investigated predictors of use in current/recent ex-smokers using multiple logistic regression.
Results: 15% of all patients (n=748) had ever tried e-cigarettes. The majority of ever users (98%) were current/recent ex-smokers. 46% of this group had ever tried e-cigarettes and 3.9% were planning to use e-cigarettes in the future. After adjustment for demographic and clinical variables, e-cigarette use was more likely in patients with younger age (OR 0.43 (0.19, 0.97) for age 60-69, 0.16 (0.06, 0.48) for 70+ compared to age 40-59). No other variables were significant predictors.
Conclusions: COPD smokers who are younger were more likely to have use e-cigarettes, but association with other demographic or COPD specific factors are as yet unclear. As this is a preliminary analysis, conclusions need to be treated with caution.
- Copyright ©the authors 2016