Use of Alternative Nicotine and Tobacco Products among Young Adults Participating in a Hungarian Festival

Abstract

Introduction: Alternative nicotine and tobacco products (ANTP) includes long-standing tobacco products in Western societies (e.g., cigar, roll-your-own cigarette, pipe, snus, chewing tobacco, snuff) and new products which use have increased dramatically in recent years, e.g., waterpipe and e-cigarette. Explicit use of legal and illegal substances is common among young people visiting outdoor music festivals. Our study aimed to explore ANTP use and its predictors among young adults studying in higher education and participating in a Hungarian music festival.

Methods: Our cross-sectional study was conducted among young adults (n=523, 45.2% females) studying in higher education and participating in the EFOTT summer festival in July, 2015, using anonymous, self-administered questionnaire. Beside descriptive analyses, multi-variate logistic regression models were used to explore the relationship of ANTP use with socio-demographic variables, smoking and other covariates.

Results: In our sample, 30.4% of participants were occasional smokers and 18.9% self-reported daily smoking. 48.8% of participants used one type, 14.3% used at least two ANTPs while 36.9% did not use any ANTPs at all. At least once a month, 11.0% of participants used waterpipe, 2.2% e-cigarette, and 1% or lessused pipe, cigar, cigarillo, and smokeless tobacco products. Combining occasional and at least once a month use, waterpipe (59.0%), cigar (8.3%) and e-cigarette (6.3%) were the most popular products. Regarding occasional smokers, 67.9% of them used waterpipe and 10.3% used e-cigarette at least once in a month; 62.7% and 14.6% of daily smokers used waterpipe and e-cigarette, respectively; while 52.1% and 0.8% of non-smokers used waterpipe and e-cigarette, respectively. Besides occasional (OR=5.97, 95%CI=2.35–15.14)) and daily smoking (OR=4.41, 95%CI=1.69–11.52), problematic alcohol use (OR=3.14, 95%CI=1.12–8.76), male gender (OR=2.98, 95%CI=1.35–6.58), <30000 HUF money for free use (OR=2.98, 95%CI=1.29–6.86), and greater sensation seeking propensity (OR=1.08, 95%CI=1.01–1.15)were significant predictors of multiple ANTP use compared to ANTP non-use.

Conclusions: According to our results, ANTP use of young adults studying in higher education and participating in an outdoor music festival is remarkable, and high risk groups of ANTP users were clearly identified. Therefore, multi-level smoking prevention would be needed in the young adult population.