Skip to main content
. 2017 Jul 13;7(3):144–150. doi: 10.1080/20009666.2017.1343076

Table 1.

A summary of all the previous studies by year of publication.

Study Location Year Population Results
Pepper, J. K., et al. [18]
(2013)
Minnesota USA 2013 Family medicine physicians, pediatricians, and nurse practitioners who treat adolescents Response rate 28%.
83% reported that they knew ‘a little or nothing at all’ about e-cigs.
62% of the respondents heard about e-cigs from patients.
Kandra, K. L., et al. [10]
(2014)
North Carolina,
USA
2014 A random sample of North Carolina physicians treating adults Response rate 31%.
48.4% reported being asked about e-cigs by patients.
67.2% said e-cigs are a helpful for smoking cessation.
35.2% recommended to their patients.
Hiscock et al. [19] (2014) UK 2011–2013 An online survey of UK smoking-cessation practitioners Response rate 20%
Patients asking about e-cigs increased from 64% to 91% between 2011 and 2013.
Patients using e-cigs increased from 2% to 24% within the 2 years (2011–2013).
Practitioner’s opinion of e-cigs being good increased significantly over the 2 years (2011–2013) from 15% to 26%.
Lazuras, L., et al. [20]
(2015)
Italy 2014 Healthcare
professionals in public smoking-cessation clinics
79.3% agreed that e-cigs are equally effective as smoking-cessation medication. 62.6% agreed that e-cigs are safe to use.
More smokers made inquiries about e-cigs in 2014 than in 2013.
Gorzkowski, J. A., et al. [21]
(2016)
USA 2014 Pediatricians attending the AAP meeting Total participants were 37.
27% believed in e-cigs as a form of harm reduction.
35% reported clinical encounters involving e-cigs.
>50% of the participants reported ‘not at all confident’ in addressing e-cigs.
Cummins, S., et al. [11]
(2016)
USA and Canada 2014 An online cross-sectional survey with quitline counselors The response rate was 90.1%.
Nearly all reported being asked about e-cigs. Only 4% recommended e-cigs.
86.7% believed that e-cigs are highly addictive yet nearly all believe e-cigs to be less harmful than standard cigarettes.
Sherratt, F. C., et al. [15]
(2016)
UK 2015 An online survey of members of The British Thoracic Oncology Group Response rate 7.7%.
81% reported being asked about e-cigs by patients.
Only 21% of participants felt confident advising patients regarding e-cigs. Practitioners advised that e-cigarettes were likely to be less harmful than regular cigarettes (23.7%) and there is a paucity of research (21%).
Only 3.7% recommended e-cigs.
Van Gucht, D., et al. [22]
(2016)
Belgium 2014 An online survey of family doctors and tobacco counselors Response rate 25%.
50% supported patients who spontaneously told them that they want to start using e-cigs, but none advised patients to use e-cigs.
63% said e-cigs are harmful.
Moysidou, A., et al. [14]
(2016)
Greece 2014–2015 An online survey of physicians and nurses in Greece Response rate 30.3%.
33% recommended e-cigs.
56% said they would recommend e-cigs to smokers who refuse to take medication to quit.
7.3% of respondents thought e-cigs contained tobacco and 35% thought that it involved combustion.
>70% said e-cigs are less harmful than cigarettes.
El-Shahawy, O., et al. [12]
(2016)
Virginia, USA 2014 Interviews with
15 primary-care physicians
13 physicians (86%) reported talking about e-cigs with their patients.
6 (46%) recommended e-cigs.
All reported lack of knowledge regarding e-cigs.
Shin, D. W., et al. [17]
(2017)
South Korea 2015 An online survey of all lung-cancer specialists Response rate 48.3%.
83% of the respondents reported being uncomfortable discussing e-cigs.
12% would recommend e-cigs.
Most believed that e-cigs are not safer than conventional tobacco products.
Egnot, E., et al. [13]
(2016)
Ohio,
USA
2015 An online survey of resident physicians at three teaching hospitals within the Ohio healthcare system. Response rate 42%
17.7% recommended e-cigs.
More years in training, exposure to peer-reviewed literature on the topic, and belief that electronic cigarettes are less addictive than traditional cigarettes increase the likelihood of recommending e-cigs.
Nickels, A. S., et al. [16]
(2017)
USA 2015 National postal survey of primary-care physicians, pulmonologists, and surgeons Response rate 44%
70% of the respondents were asked about e-cigs by their patients.
37.9% recommended e-cigs for smoking cessation and pulmonologists were more likely to recommend than surgeons and primary-care physicians.
71% believe e-cigarettes can decrease the number of cigarettes smoked and 54.5% believe e-cigarettes can help patients quit smoking.
>50% reported that they are not confident about their level of knowledge about e-cigarettes and ability to answer patients’ questions about e-cigarettes.