Table 2.

Interview themes and sample quotes

Prompt	Theme	Quotes
“Tell me about why you are interested in quitting e-cigarettes (and cigarettes, if applicable)”	Health	“I’m interested in quitting because of health concerns that I know that it is damaging to my body. The area where I notice it the most is my lung capacity and my ability to exercise is limited. And I think that would benefit hugely from finding a way to quit.” 28-year-old white male, mono user “Just the concept of like sucking out a device and blowing it. And I’m the same way. I mean it’s just gross. And you’re inhaling it, and I know what’s in it. And I just know that it’s unhealthy. And I’m in the medical field, so I know how bad it is. I tell my patients not to do it, and I go and do it…I have acne from it. I have a sensitivity to the propylene glycol, and so I get like cystic acne. I’ve been having hair loss since I started it. Obviously with COVID, the susceptibility and the whole popcorn lung and everything. I just know that it’s really bad, and then obviously like the flavorings and stuff.”28-year-old white female, former smoker “I thought it was an alternative to try to quit smoking as much nicotine, but they make me cough a lot. It’s like they make my chest hurt sometimes.” 28-year-old white female dual user
	Cost	“I thought it was gonna be cheaper, but in all actuality I’m still spending - so it’s $20.00 for my refills, and I’m still spending that four times a week sometimes. That’s a lot; it’s not cheaper” 37-year-old white female, former smoker “And the financial aspect, you know, it’s a pretty useless thing to be spending money on.”26-year-old white male, former smoker
	Family/Friends	“And if my family knew that I did it, they’d be like ashamed. And I know that my husband hates it, and he’s thrown out my device several times. And we have arguments about it. And so I have to do it in like private, so it’s like a shameful thing for me to do.” 28-year-old white female, former smoker “My parents begged, begged, begged me to quit” 22-year-old white female, mono user
	Dependence	“[After quitting smoking], instead of like what you’re supposed to do, go down in nicotine and try to wean yourself off, I literally stayed at the same one…I think I vape more than I smoked cigarettes” 32-year-old white female, former smoker “I don’t want to be dependent on any cigarettes or e-cigarettes.” 49-year-old Hispanic male, dual user
	Stigma	“And that’s kind of what got me in trouble at work. I kind of hide the JUUL, but I was puffing away on that and there’s a lot more smoke with it and the boss saw it and he wasn’t too happy. You know, I said, ‘I don’t want to lose this job. It’s a beautiful job,’ and it’s like, ‘Why do I keep doing that?’” 58-year-old white female, dual user
“Have you talked to a medical professional about your e-cigarette use? What was that like/what do you think it would be like?”	Stigma	“They just didn’t really like – they didn’t care as much which was what made me feel weird about it. They didn’t really want to refer any hotlines or anything… they didn’t really provide any help, they just said you should quit.” 23-year-old Hispanic female, mono user “I kind of like didn’t tell them how much I was smoking… the doctor was really hard on me about the vape. He said that they are really worse than cigarettes, like, cigarettes are bad too, but he was telling me that a vape is really, really bad.”28-year-old white female, dual user
	Support	“She’s not a fan of any kind of nicotine use at all but at least this was a start headed in the right direction, so she kind of basically left it right there. She was like ‘Oh, I’m glad. I’m glad you’ve taken a pathway to want to quit completely.’ So, that’s how she left it”. 50-year-old Black male, former smoker “The doctor that I talked to when I asked about Chantix, she was very understanding. She wasn’t judgmental. I felt comfortable. I imagine I wouldn’t with all doctors, but she was pretty chill.” 33-year-old South Asian male, former smoker
	Ambivalence	“They all ask you when you first go in, you know, ‘Do you drink? Do you smoke? Do you do this or that?’ And I mean it really doesn’t go farther than just telling that I used to smoke and now I vape. It really hasn’t gone farther, and honestly I really haven’t had any health concerns that would make me need anyone’s guidance on that.”30 year-old Native American female, former smoker
“What do you think the challenges will be when quitting e-cigarettes (and smoking)?”	Accessibility	“The cost and the convenience. I save a lot of money using this as opposed to smoking cigarettes. This is really affordable…This is accepted in restaurants or in stores. I can just vape away and nothing is said. So, I’m not breaking any laws.” 50-year-old Black male, former smoker
	Social situations	“I believe the biggest challenge will probably be just having to not be around [my girlfriend] when she does it. I’ll let her know, ‘If you’re going to do it, make sure you’re away from me and I don’t see you do it, because I don’t want to watch you do something that I really want to do.’” 20-year-old white male, former smoker
	Mood	“Just the thought of not having it. It’s been such a crutch my whole life. Whenever I’m stressed out or anxious, even if it doesn’t really make me feel better, I guess I’m tricking myself, like a placebo type effect. It’s just like a security blanket to me.” 27-year-old white male, dual user
	Sensorimotor/Habit	“I think I kind of have less of a nicotine problem and more of a mouth fixation problem…Like, I go to hit something all of the time. It’s like something I do in between activities, like, I feel like it’s going to be hard for me to like shake that.”21-year-old white female, dual user
	Withdrawal	“[When I’ve stopped vaping in the past] I was ungodly agitated and irritable. And everything bothered me. And my mood was just really bad. And I was tired, and I had body aches. I was sweating at night. It was really bad.” 28-year-old white female, mono user