Teens vape nicotine to help them relax, survey finds
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Key takeaways:
- One in five 12th grade students reported vaping in the last month, and 7.8% vaped almost daily.
- Common reasons for vaping included relaxation, experimentation, boredom and taste.
Nearly half of adolescents who vape nicotine — and almost three-quarters of near-daily users — do so for relaxation, according to study findings published in Pediatrics.
“Adolescent use of electronic nicotine delivery systems or e-cigarettes — known as vaping — is prevalent and of critical public health importance because of dependence risk and respiratory, neurologic and cardiovascular problems,” Megan E. Patrick, PhD, a research professor at the University of Michigan Institute of Social Research, and colleagues wrote.
Patrick and colleagues studied Monitor the Future survey responses given by 28,522 secondary school students between 2021 and 2023. The survey asked 8th, 10th and 12th grade students whether they vape, how often they vape and why they vape.
According to the researchers, 12th graders reported the highest prevalence of any vaping in the last 30 days and vaping at least 20 days (near daily) in the last month (19.4% and 7.8%, respectively), followed by 10th graders (13% and 4.2%, respectively) and 8th graders (7.5% and 1.7%, respectively).
Almost half of students (48.7%) who vaped in the past 12 months said they did it to relax or relieve tension, the researchers found. Other common reasons included experimentation or seeing what it was like (48.7%), boredom (36.4%), taste (34%) and to have a good time with their friends (30.4%).
Among 12th grade students who vaped almost every day, 71.1% said they did so to relax, 42.8% cited boredom, 42.7% claimed it was because they were “hooked” and 41.4% said it was because it tasted good, the researchers found. One-third of near-daily users said they vaped because it was more convenient than smoking cigarettes, and 8.9% vaped to help them quit using cigarettes.
In a similar study Patrick worked on in 2015, the main reasons high schoolers vaped were experimentation, boredom and taste. At that time, relaxation was the fifth most cited reason, whereas today it is the top reason for vaping, Patrick and colleagues wrote.
“This represents a shift in adolescent vaping reasons over the past decade,” Patrick and colleagues wrote. “Screening for nicotine vaping alongside stress and anxiety may be an important tool for early intervention efforts because using to relax is associated with increased risk of future dependence.”
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