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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Over the last decade, novel tobacco and nicotine product experimentation and use have dramatically increased among the youth, even in countries with strong tobacco control and antismoking social norms. We performed an online questionnaire-based cross-sectional study in MarchJune 2021, targeting students from the University of Beira Interior, Portugal. The aim was to assess the experimentation and use of tobacco and nicotine products and students’ beliefs towards these products. Of the 452 participants, 67.0% were female; the mean age was 21.9 ± 3 years. Most students (60.4%) reported experimenting with tobacco/nicotine products; 31.2% were current users; polyconsumption was common. Of the current users, all used cigarettes, 41.1% used heated tobacco, 20.6% e-cigarettes, and 14.9% used water pipes. Our multivariate analysis showed that being male, being in the third year of study, and cohabiting or socializing with smokers were strongly associated with tobacco/nicotine use. While most students agree that heated tobacco and e-cigarettes are addictive, that they are not less harmful than cigarettes, and that second-hand exposure may cause health problems, few tobacco/nicotine users are ready to quit, and few students support a smoke-free Citation: Vaz, M.; Cascais, P.; Lourenço, O. Use of and Beliefs toward Novel Tobacco and Nicotine Products among Portuguese University Students: A Pandemic Survey. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2024, 21, 478. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/ijerph21040478 Academic Editors: Klaas F. Franzen and Daniel Drömann Received: 15 March 2024 Revised: 9 April 2024 Accepted: 12 April 2024 Published: 14 April 2024 Copyright: © 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). university campus. These findings indicate high experimentation and the regular dual use of novel tobacco and nicotine products and suggest a pro-smoking social norm among university students.
Description
The study was conducted following the Declaration of Helsinki, and the study proposal was approved by the UBI Ethics Committee, Covilhã, Portugal (process number: CE-UBI-Pj-2020-089:ID394).
Keywords
Electronic cigarette Heated tobacco Nicotine Tobacco University students Water pipe