BACKGROUND: The use of e-cigarettes, or vaping, has surged in recent years, raising significant concerns about their effects on cardiovascular, respiratory, and mental health. While e-cigarettes may be effective for smoking cessation, their long-term efficacy and safety are unclear. Given the addictive nature of vaping and interest in cessation, strategies are necessary to address this growing area of need. Our goal was to summarize the available literature on interventions for the intention to quit vaping.
METHODS: A comprehensive search was performed in MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Central and Scopus. We included all interventional studies that examined “intention to quit”, and “rates of vaping cessation” outcomes. Abstracts and full texts were screened independently in duplicate and main reason for exclusion was recorded. Risk of bias was also assessed in duplicate based on study performance along several domains.
RESULTS: The initial search yielded 7582 papers of which 3740 were removed as duplicates. A further 3758 papers were removed after the abstract and title screen. 84 full texts were screened, of which 75 were removed. Nine papers were included in the final evaluation. 6 randomized control trials examined “intention to quit” outcomes (total sample 4537) but could not be compared due to differences in Likert scale and unavailability of necessary data. Overall, quality of evidence was poor, driven in large part by non-representative samples, high rate of selection bias, and lack of blinding of outcome assessors.
CONCLUSIONS: Our systematic review suggests that there is a growing body of evidence for interventions aimed at increasing the intention to quit vaping. However, there is limited high quality, reproducible studies. Further research should focus on the implementation of high quality randomized control trials with easy to reproduce and scale interventions to address this important clinical and research question.