Cigarette Smoking Relapse Among People Who Switched to E-cigarettes or Other Tobacco Products

Introduction:
This text provides an analysis of a study examining the relationship between cigarette smoking relapse and the use of e-cigarettes or other tobacco products among individuals who have recently quit smoking. The study aims to contribute to the literature by considering different definitions of relapse and accounting for multiple quitting methods.

Key Points:

* The study used four annual waves of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study from 2013 to 2018 to construct two independent cohorts of respondents who recently quit smoking cigarettes.
* The study considered three alternative definitions of relapse: any cigarette smoking in the past 12 months, any cigarette smoking in the past 30 days, and smoking on ≥3 days in the past 30 days.
* The respondents who recently quit smoking cigarettes were divided into different user groups based on their tobacco product use behaviors at follow-up 1.
* Controlling for multiple independent risk factors, the study examined whether individuals who recently quit smoking cigarettes and switched to non-cigarette tobacco products were more or less likely to relapse to cigarette smoking by follow-up 2.
* The results showed that individuals who recently quit smoking cigarettes and switched to non-cigarette tobacco products were not clearly more likely to relapse when employing a relapse definition less strict than any smoking in the past 12 months.
* The frequency of tobacco product use affects the relapse risk, with daily use of any combustible product being statistically significantly associated with smoking relapse.
* The exclusive use of noncombustibles or e-cigarettes was not significantly associated with smoking relapse.

Main Message:
The study emphasizes the importance of properly assessing and defining smoking relapse, as different definitions can lead to contrasting findings. The text underlines that people who recently quit smoking cigarettes and switched to e-cigarettes or other non-cigarette tobacco products may be more likely to slip but are not clearly more likely to relapse, suggesting that the availability of reduced-risk nicotine-delivery products might represent the difference between a slip leading to relapse and a slip not impeding long-term smoking cessation.

Ruoyan Sun, David Mendez, Kenneth E Warner, Cigarette Smoking Relapse Among People Who Switched to E-cigarettes or Other Tobacco Products, Nicotine & Tobacco Research, Volume 27, Issue 4, April 2025, Pages 637–643, https://doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntae201