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“It’s Cool, Modifying and All, but I Don’t Want Anything Blowing Up on Me:” A Focus Group Study of Motivations to Modify Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS)

Introduction: Modifications to electronic nicoti ne delivery systems (ENDS) can pose health risks to users. This study explored users’ motivations for modifying ENDS devices and how perceived risks of modifications influenced modification behaviors as product availability and device characteristics...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Massey, Zachary B., Fairman, Robert T., Churchill, Victoria, Ashley, David L., Popova, Lucy
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8619023/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34831491
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182211735
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author Massey, Zachary B.
Fairman, Robert T.
Churchill, Victoria
Ashley, David L.
Popova, Lucy
author_facet Massey, Zachary B.
Fairman, Robert T.
Churchill, Victoria
Ashley, David L.
Popova, Lucy
author_sort Massey, Zachary B.
collection PubMed
description Introduction: Modifications to electronic nicoti ne delivery systems (ENDS) can pose health risks to users. This study explored users’ motivations for modifying ENDS devices and how perceived risks of modifications influenced modification behaviors as product availability and device characteristics changed over time. Method: We conducted nine focus groups (February–June 2020) with 32 current ENDS users (18+, used ENDS in the past 30 days, and had been using ENDS for more than 2 months). Results: Participants primarily modified ENDS devices to improve their experiences, such as experimenting with flavor, controlling nicotine levels, or using cannabis products with ENDS. Another reason for modifying was routine maintenance to ensure a satisfactory experience, including maintaining coils and keeping batteries charged. The broader availability of ENDS products shifted modification behaviors over time, with newer devices making some modifications (e.g., coil replacement) easier and making more intricate modifications (e.g., building coil from scratch) less common. Participants were aware of modification dangers and cited perceived risk as the reason for avoiding certain modifications, such as battery alterations. Conclusions: Modifications of ENDS are ongoing and evolving among users and should be considered by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other regulatory decision-makers as product authorization reviews are conducted and product standards are developed.
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spelling pubmed-86190232021-11-27 “It’s Cool, Modifying and All, but I Don’t Want Anything Blowing Up on Me:” A Focus Group Study of Motivations to Modify Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS) Massey, Zachary B. Fairman, Robert T. Churchill, Victoria Ashley, David L. Popova, Lucy Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Introduction: Modifications to electronic nicoti ne delivery systems (ENDS) can pose health risks to users. This study explored users’ motivations for modifying ENDS devices and how perceived risks of modifications influenced modification behaviors as product availability and device characteristics changed over time. Method: We conducted nine focus groups (February–June 2020) with 32 current ENDS users (18+, used ENDS in the past 30 days, and had been using ENDS for more than 2 months). Results: Participants primarily modified ENDS devices to improve their experiences, such as experimenting with flavor, controlling nicotine levels, or using cannabis products with ENDS. Another reason for modifying was routine maintenance to ensure a satisfactory experience, including maintaining coils and keeping batteries charged. The broader availability of ENDS products shifted modification behaviors over time, with newer devices making some modifications (e.g., coil replacement) easier and making more intricate modifications (e.g., building coil from scratch) less common. Participants were aware of modification dangers and cited perceived risk as the reason for avoiding certain modifications, such as battery alterations. Conclusions: Modifications of ENDS are ongoing and evolving among users and should be considered by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other regulatory decision-makers as product authorization reviews are conducted and product standards are developed. MDPI 2021-11-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8619023/ /pubmed/34831491 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182211735 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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/).
spellingShingle Article
Massey, Zachary B.
Fairman, Robert T.
Churchill, Victoria
Ashley, David L.
Popova, Lucy
“It’s Cool, Modifying and All, but I Don’t Want Anything Blowing Up on Me:” A Focus Group Study of Motivations to Modify Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS)
title “It’s Cool, Modifying and All, but I Don’t Want Anything Blowing Up on Me:” A Focus Group Study of Motivations to Modify Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS)
title_full “It’s Cool, Modifying and All, but I Don’t Want Anything Blowing Up on Me:” A Focus Group Study of Motivations to Modify Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS)
title_fullStr “It’s Cool, Modifying and All, but I Don’t Want Anything Blowing Up on Me:” A Focus Group Study of Motivations to Modify Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS)
title_full_unstemmed “It’s Cool, Modifying and All, but I Don’t Want Anything Blowing Up on Me:” A Focus Group Study of Motivations to Modify Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS)
title_short “It’s Cool, Modifying and All, but I Don’t Want Anything Blowing Up on Me:” A Focus Group Study of Motivations to Modify Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS)
title_sort “it’s cool, modifying and all, but i don’t want anything blowing up on me:” a focus group study of motivations to modify electronic nicotine delivery systems (ends)
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8619023/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34831491
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182211735
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