Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Vaping among Youth in Section 13, Shah Alam

Abstract

Background: In Malaysia, the prevalence of vaping and dual users has been increasing since 2015with the highest prevalence among young students. Hence, this study measured the prevalence of vaping and dual users, and the sociodemographic factors lead to vaping also how this will affect the knowledge, attitude, the practice of vaping among youth. Methods and results: An observational cross-sectional data were collected from a total of 431 Malaysian youths aged 18-40 years old who are studying, working, or living in Shah Alam. A validated questionnaire was adopted. Results: In this study, out of the 431 respondents, 139 respondents reported having ever vape, and 59 respondents reported as current vaper while 15 of the respondents were dual users. It is revealed that male respondents were the majority of vapers (n=45) with most of them being under the age of fewer than 30 years old (n=52). Most of the vapers were Malay followed by Chinese, Indian, and lastly other races. Most vapers had a positive smoking history in family members (74.5%) and the majority of the current vapers were past smokers (52.63%). Among the ever user, the most common reason to vape was smoking cessation (43.2%) followed by peer pressure (24.5%), miscellaneous (15.8%), being stylish (10.1%), and satisfaction (6.5%). Overall, 287 (66.6%) respondents had good knowledge about vaping and 87.1% of them were non-vapers with a negative attitude towards vaping (90.7%). Conclusion: The study shows that the respondents have knowledge of vaping, and most of them are never smoke. There is also an association between vaping and gender and family history of smoking.