Electronic cigarette use and knowledge gaps among medical students: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use has increased globally, particularly among young adults, raising public health concerns. Medical students are expected to have adequate knowledge about these risks. Cross-sectional study including 277 medical students at a public university in Brazil. Data were collected via structured questionnaire and analysed using logistic regression to identify predictors of e-cigarette use. Among medical students, e-cigarette current use prevalence was 7.0%, whereas 13.4% reported previous use. Women had lower odds of use than men (odds ratio [OR] = 0.36; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.15–0.81), whereas previous conventional smoking was strongly associated (OR = 7.95; 95% CI: 3.04–21.67). Use was frequently associated with alcohol (90%) and illicit drugs (60%). Most participants were unaware of e-cigarette or vaping–associated lung injury (87.8%), and 39.8% did not know the legal status of these devices in Brazil. E-cigarette use among medical students is associated with other risk behaviours and important knowledge gaps. This highlights the need for targeted educational and tobacco control strategies.