E-cigarettes have proven themselves to be effective tools for quitting smoking and have therefore also found a place in national smoking cessation guidelines. Researchers from the United Kingdom and the United States analyzed what smoking cessation guidelines from different countries say about e-cigarettes, how effective smoking cessation using e-cigarettes is according to scientific research, and what health professionals could tell smokers about e-cigarettes.

USA and Canadian guidelines

People looking for help to quit smoking should first try medical products that are safe and will help them quit smoking. These include nicotine replacement therapy products, varenicline and bupropion.

People who are unable to quit smoking with medical products should discuss the risks and benefits of using e-cigarettes to quit smoking with their healthcare professional. The willingness of healthcare professionals and professional organizations to recommend e-cigarettes to smokers varies. Many health professionals recommend e-cigarette use only to selected smokers.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the sale of several e-cigarettes in the US because the public health benefits of using them outweigh the associated harm. This means that the FDA believes that some e-cigarettes can help people quit smoking who otherwise wouldn't. However, no e-cigarette has been licensed as a drug by the FDA.

UK and New Zealand guidelines

The UK and New Zealand guidelines state that people who want to quit should have access to a range of products, including e-cigarettes, medical products and smoking cessation advice.

Healthcare professionals should provide clear, consistent and relevant information about nicotine-containing e-cigarettes to adults interested in using them to quit smoking, and should counsel patients on the use of e-cigarettes.

Australian guidelines

In Australia, e-cigarettes are not considered a first aid for smoking cessation. People who have tried smoking cessation medications should talk to their doctor about whether nicotine-containing e-cigarettes are the right choice for them to quit smoking. Doctors can prescribe nicotine-containing e-cigarettes for smokers.

Analyzing the research, the researchers found that there is now a great deal of evidence that e-cigarettes help some people quit smoking and should therefore be more widely recommended as a smoking cessation tool. At the same time, we cannot forget that, although the use of e-cigarettes is many times less harmful than smoking, it is not a completely safe product, and therefore healthcare professionals may be afraid to talk about e-cigarettes.

To make it easier for healthcare professionals to discuss smoking cessation with e-cigarettes with patients, researchers suggested what to say about it

Researchers' recommendations for healthcare professionals:

What to tell the patient about the benefits and risks of e-cigarettes?

E-cigarettes can help some people quit smoking.

Using e-cigarettes is significantly less harmful than smoking, but e-cigarettes are not completely harmless. Questions remain about the effects of their long-term use.

What should the patient keep in mind when quitting smoking with the help of an e-cigarette?

If you use an e-cigarette to quit smoking, you should switch to using it completely. E-cigarettes should be used regularly, and smoking regular cigarettes should be stopped once and for all as soon as possible.

When switching from regular cigarettes to e-cigarettes, there may be a situation where a person uses both products for a certain period. The faster you reduce the number of times you smoke regular cigarettes, the faster the benefits of quitting smoking will come. If the simultaneous use of both products continues for a long time, the risks caused by smoking cannot be completely avoided.

Quitting smoking with the help of an e-cigarette is probably even more effective if you also attend smoking cessation counseling at the same time.

Because there is some uncertainty about the risks associated with long-term use of e-cigarettes, ex-smokers should eventually quit e-cigarettes as well. However, when finally giving up e-cigarettes, you must be sure not to return to smoking regular cigarettes.

Source: NNA Smokefree Estonia