Table 1.
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. |