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Views on and experiences of electronic cigarettes: a qualitative study of women who are pregnant or have recently given birth

BACKGROUND: Electronic cigarettes (ECs) are increasingly used for reducing or stopping smoking, with some studies showing positive outcomes. However, little is known about views on ECs during pregnancy or postpartum and previous studies have nearly all been conducted in the US and have methodologica...

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Autores principales: Bowker, Katharine, Orton, Sophie, Cooper, Sue, Naughton, Felix, Whitemore, Rachel, Lewis, Sarah, Bauld, Linda, Sinclair, Lesley, Coleman, Tim, Dickinson, Anne, Ussher, Michael
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6003107/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29902987
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12884-018-1856-4
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author Bowker, Katharine
Orton, Sophie
Cooper, Sue
Naughton, Felix
Whitemore, Rachel
Lewis, Sarah
Bauld, Linda
Sinclair, Lesley
Coleman, Tim
Dickinson, Anne
Ussher, Michael
author_facet Bowker, Katharine
Orton, Sophie
Cooper, Sue
Naughton, Felix
Whitemore, Rachel
Lewis, Sarah
Bauld, Linda
Sinclair, Lesley
Coleman, Tim
Dickinson, Anne
Ussher, Michael
author_sort Bowker, Katharine
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Electronic cigarettes (ECs) are increasingly used for reducing or stopping smoking, with some studies showing positive outcomes. However, little is known about views on ECs during pregnancy or postpartum and previous studies have nearly all been conducted in the US and have methodological limitations, such as not distinguishing between smokers and ex/non-smokers. A greater understanding of this topic will help to inform both clinicians and EC interventions. We elicited views and experiences of ECs among UK pregnant or recently pregnant women. METHODS: We conducted semi-structured telephone interviews, using topic guides, with pregnant or recently pregnant women, who were current or recent ex-smokers. To ensure broad views of ECs were obtained, recruitment was from several geographical locations and via various avenues of recruitment. This included stop smoking services, antenatal and health visitor clinics, a pregnancy website and an informal network. Participants were 15 pregnant and 15 postpartum women, including nine current EC users, 11 ex-users, and 10 never-users. Five women who were interviewed in pregnancy were later interviewed in postpartum to explore if their views had changed. Audio data was transcribed verbatim and framework analysis was applied. RESULTS: Five main themes emerged: motivations for use (e.g., for stopping or reducing smoking), social stigma (e.g., avoiding use in public, preferring ‘discrete’ NRT), using the EC (e.g., mostly used at home); consumer aspects (e.g., limited advice available), and harm perceptions (e.g., viewed as less harmful than smoking; concerns about safety and addiction). CONCLUSIONS: ECs were viewed positively by some pregnant and postpartum women and seen as less harmful than smoking and useful as aids for reducing and stopping smoking. However, due to perceived social stigma, some women feel uncomfortable using ECs in public, especially during pregnancy, and had concerns about safety and nicotine dependence. Health professionals and designers of EC interventions need to provide women with up-to-date and consistent information and advice about safety and dependence, as well as considering the influence of social stigma. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12884-018-1856-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-60031072018-07-06 Views on and experiences of electronic cigarettes: a qualitative study of women who are pregnant or have recently given birth Bowker, Katharine Orton, Sophie Cooper, Sue Naughton, Felix Whitemore, Rachel Lewis, Sarah Bauld, Linda Sinclair, Lesley Coleman, Tim Dickinson, Anne Ussher, Michael BMC Pregnancy Childbirth Research Article BACKGROUND: Electronic cigarettes (ECs) are increasingly used for reducing or stopping smoking, with some studies showing positive outcomes. However, little is known about views on ECs during pregnancy or postpartum and previous studies have nearly all been conducted in the US and have methodological limitations, such as not distinguishing between smokers and ex/non-smokers. A greater understanding of this topic will help to inform both clinicians and EC interventions. We elicited views and experiences of ECs among UK pregnant or recently pregnant women. METHODS: We conducted semi-structured telephone interviews, using topic guides, with pregnant or recently pregnant women, who were current or recent ex-smokers. To ensure broad views of ECs were obtained, recruitment was from several geographical locations and via various avenues of recruitment. This included stop smoking services, antenatal and health visitor clinics, a pregnancy website and an informal network. Participants were 15 pregnant and 15 postpartum women, including nine current EC users, 11 ex-users, and 10 never-users. Five women who were interviewed in pregnancy were later interviewed in postpartum to explore if their views had changed. Audio data was transcribed verbatim and framework analysis was applied. RESULTS: Five main themes emerged: motivations for use (e.g., for stopping or reducing smoking), social stigma (e.g., avoiding use in public, preferring ‘discrete’ NRT), using the EC (e.g., mostly used at home); consumer aspects (e.g., limited advice available), and harm perceptions (e.g., viewed as less harmful than smoking; concerns about safety and addiction). CONCLUSIONS: ECs were viewed positively by some pregnant and postpartum women and seen as less harmful than smoking and useful as aids for reducing and stopping smoking. However, due to perceived social stigma, some women feel uncomfortable using ECs in public, especially during pregnancy, and had concerns about safety and nicotine dependence. Health professionals and designers of EC interventions need to provide women with up-to-date and consistent information and advice about safety and dependence, as well as considering the influence of social stigma. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12884-018-1856-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2018-06-15 /pmc/articles/PMC6003107/ /pubmed/29902987 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12884-018-1856-4 Text en © The Author(s). 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Bowker, Katharine
Orton, Sophie
Cooper, Sue
Naughton, Felix
Whitemore, Rachel
Lewis, Sarah
Bauld, Linda
Sinclair, Lesley
Coleman, Tim
Dickinson, Anne
Ussher, Michael
Views on and experiences of electronic cigarettes: a qualitative study of women who are pregnant or have recently given birth
title Views on and experiences of electronic cigarettes: a qualitative study of women who are pregnant or have recently given birth
title_full Views on and experiences of electronic cigarettes: a qualitative study of women who are pregnant or have recently given birth
title_fullStr Views on and experiences of electronic cigarettes: a qualitative study of women who are pregnant or have recently given birth
title_full_unstemmed Views on and experiences of electronic cigarettes: a qualitative study of women who are pregnant or have recently given birth
title_short Views on and experiences of electronic cigarettes: a qualitative study of women who are pregnant or have recently given birth
title_sort views on and experiences of electronic cigarettes: a qualitative study of women who are pregnant or have recently given birth
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6003107/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29902987
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12884-018-1856-4
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