All tobacco products cause equal harm is what many physicians incorrectly believe, and are less likely to advise e-cigarettes to people seeking to quit smoking or to those treated for a tobacco-induced disease.
Each year in the U.S, nearly 480,000 people die from smoking tobacco. Whilst e-cigarettes are not approved by the US FDA as cessation device, many people seek advice of physicians about using the product over tobacco cigarettes as an approach to help stop smoking.
E-cigarettes use a heated liquid that contains nicotine.
With the growing evidence of e-cigarettes to be equally effective for smoking cessation, they may play a key role to reduce use of cigarettes and subsequently tobacco-induced disease, stated the author of the study.
In fact, it is important to understand perspectives of physicians for e-cigarettes as a means for harm reduction.
Meanwhile, the study published in JAMA Network Open asked 2,058 physicians in the U.S. in 2018 and again in 2019 about their communication with patients about e-cigarettes. The researchers asked physicians what they would recommend to two different patients who wanted to quit smoking: an older man who smokes heavily and has tried to quit number of times using different ways, and a young man who is relatively a light smoker and has not tried quitting smoking.
The study discovers that physicians are significantly more likely to advise e-cigarettes for heavy smokers, while recommend FDA-approved medications for the lighter smoker. Almost 70% physicians verified that patients asked about e-cigarettes, and one-third said to be asked in the last 30 days.
This leads to the finding that more than 60 percent doctors incorrectly opine all tobacco products to be equally harmful.