“I just wish vaping wasn’t a thing”: a qualitative study of parental concerns and attitudes towards adolescent vaping.

Abstract

Background: With the rapid increase of e-cigarette or vaping in adolescents, parents can provide unique perspectives to assist in addressing this issue. As research regarding parent experiences of adolescent vaping is generally limited, this study therefore explored parent: i) attitudes regarding adolescent vaping; and ii) experiences of addressing vaping with their adolescent children in the home environment. Methods: Online focus groups (n=18, with 92 participants) were conducted in April 2023 as part of the Generation Vape research study in Australia. Parents were eligible if they had at least one child aged 14-17 years who attended high school and who lived with them most of the time. Results: Using reflexive thematic analysis, three main themes were generated: i) attitudes about own children vaping; ii) boundaries for vaping; and iii) conversations. Participants largely agreed they do not condone vaping in their children, however, felt resigned that experimenting was inevitable. For some, vaping was a lesser concern compared to other issues, with a view that social vaping is more accepted, as opposed to habitual use. Parent-child conversations appeared to occur opportunistically, but participants felt uninformed about vapes which was seen as a barrier. Conclusions: Our findings highlight that adolescent vaping is a complex issue for parents to address. While parents represent one important part in tackling this issue, they feel uninformed nor empowered to do so. Additionally, prevailing attitudes about “acceptable” vaping and misconceptions regarding addiction need to be addressed, with a clear message that any vaping is harmful for adolescents and should be discouraged.