United Kingdom: New research shows that providing free vapes in emergency rooms might aid thousands of smokers in giving up.
The experts behind the research now think that “if this intervention was widely implemented it could result in more than 22,000 extra people quitting smoking each year,” according to Dr. Ian Pope of UEA’s Norwich Medical School.
A little over 6.4 million adults in the UK were smokers in 2022, according to data from the Office for National Statistics, and the National Health Service estimates that smoking causes roughly 76,000 deaths in the country each year.
In their trial, which took place in six emergency rooms in the UK between January and August of the previous year, the team provided about 484 daily smokers with e-cigarette starter kits, referrals to stop smoking programs, and short counsel from a dedicated consultant while they were in the hospital.
Only written information on where to get assistance to help people quit smoking was provided to a second sample of 488 patients.
To be sure they had stopped smoking, researchers provided study participants a carbon monoxide test after six months. Vapes and a referral were offered to those who were 76 percent more likely to have quit.
When comparing the groups after six months, 4.1 percent of those who received merely guidance had given up smoking, compared to 7.2 percent of those who received vapes.
The first group were also more likely to try to stop, and self-reported that their seven-day abstinence from smoking after six months was a little over 23 percent compared to 13 percent in the group signposted to services. Additionally, it comes after Rishi Sunak declared his intention to outlaw disposable vaporizers in an effort to curb youth usage of them.
“While the evidence for using e-cigarettes as a cessation intervention is growing, not enough research is being done to understand how to most effectively prevent e-cigarette use among adolescents, while making them available in a targeted way for cessation,” the UEA study, which was published in the Emergency Medicine Journal, stated.
KNOWLEDGE | UK to ban disposable vapes for children’s health
