OBJECTIVES:

Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) use among youth has continued to increase worldwide. One concern regarding relationship between e-cigarette use and future intention to cigarette smoking also has raised. We investigated the association between electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) use and future intention to cigarette smoking among adolescents who had never smoked cigarettes.

METHODS:

We conducted a pooled cross-sectional study based on data drawn from a nationally representative random sample in the 2014-2016 Taiwan Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS). After excluding adolescents who had missing information on current e-cigarette use or ever smoke cigarette, this study included 4,033,242 adolescents. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to examine the association between e-cigarette use and susceptibility to cigarette smoking.

RESULTS:

A total of 1.11% of Taiwan non-smoking adolescents were current (past 30-day) e-cigarettes users. Adolescents who were current e-cigarette users had higher odds of susceptibility to cigarette smoking (adjusted OR= 1.78) compared to those that were not current e-cigarette users. Besides that, we also identified year 2016 (adjusted OR=1.08), male (adjusted OR=1.45), monthly allowance more than NTD 3500 (adjusted OR=1.21), smoking mother (adjusted OR=1.34), some or most friends smoking (adjusted OR=2.43 and 5.48), use of other tobacco products (adjusted OR=1.63), use of smokeless tobacco (adjusted OR=2.31), free cigarette (adjusted OR=4.88) as risk factors for future intention to cigarette smoking.

CONCLUSIONS:

E-cigarette use was strongly associated with future intention to cigarette smoking among adolescents. Continuous preventing and monitoring use of e-cigarette among adolescents are needed.