Social portrait of young people who use alternative types of tobacco smoking

Abstract

Purpose: to estimate the specific weight of the use of different types of smoking among young people based on conducting an anonymous questionnaire on their awareness of the health risks of different types of smoking. Materials and methods. The questionnaire was based and structured on the recommendations and documents of the Global Adult Tobacco Survey for Ukraine, modified and adapted for use in accordance with the intended purpose. 521 people aged 18 to 35 took part in the anonymous survey. The survey was conducted for 3 years (2018–2020) in small groups (10–12 people). Statistical processing was carried out using the AtteStat statistical package, MS Excel and Statistics. Results. The specific weight of respondents who smoke industrial cigarettes at the time of the survey was 22.14% (95% CI 14.77 – 29.50), at the same time, the frequency of people who tried to smoke industrial cigarettes or were smokers in the past was 51.64% (95% CI 42.77 – 60.51). 99.5% of respondents were aware of the issue of electronic cigarettes from various sources. There were 67 people (12.86%) active users of electronic cigarettes at the time of the survey, the average age of which was 22.5 years (Me (25%; 75%) 19; 24). 48.36% of respondents use electronic cigarettes at least once (95% CI 39.49 – 57.23). When evaluating the results of the survey under the questionnaire heading “Opinion about the reasons for using electronic cigarettes” (with a multiple-choice answer), we obtained the following data: “fashion” – 53.28%; “habit” – 52.46%; “dependency” – 32.79%; “support of social status” – 9.01%; “disease” – 4.1%; “necessity” – 1.64%; “their option” was given by 4.92% of respondents. Conclusions. Among young people, regardless of gender, every fifth person (20%) is an active consumer of electronic cigarettes. The highest risks of both trying and using alternative types of tobacco smoking in the form of e-cigarettes are for people in their close environment who are regular users of e-cigarettes or any other types of smoking.