The purpose of this study is to see whether adults who use e-cigarettes every day experience symptoms of nicotine withdrawal when they stop using e-cigarettes for 6 days.
Study Design: The investigators will recruit 120 individuals who are long-term daily and exclusive users of nicotine-containing e-cigarettes. Participants will be asked to use their own e-cigarette as usual during the first week of the study and to then stop their use of e-cigarettes for 6 days. The total study duration will be 14 days. Participants will be instructed to continue abstinence from other tobacco and nicotine products during the entire study. The investigators will use an escalating payment system with bonuses based on breath and urine samples to encourage compliance. Every day during the study, participants will report e-cigarette and tobacco cigarette use and monitor symptoms of nicotine withdrawal via a phone call to an Interactive Voice Response system. Participants will attend 3 study visits each week to provide urine and breath samples to verify compliance, and to complete brief surveys.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
147
Abrupt cessation for 6 days
Battelle Memorial Institute
Baltimore, Maryland, United States
University of Vermont
Burlington, Vermont, United States
Total score on the Minnesota Nicotine Withdrawal Scale (MNWS)
The investigators will compare the mean score across participants for the entire 6-day abstinence vs. use conditions.
Time frame: 6 days
Individual items on the Minnesota Nicotine Withdrawal Scale (MNWS)
The investigators will use the mean score for each of the 16 symptoms across participants during abstinence and use conditions.
Time frame: 6 days
Questionnaire of E-cigarette Urges (brief)
This is a revision of the brief version Questionnaire of Smoking Urges that asks about urges for e-cigarettes rather than tobacco cigarettes.
Time frame: 6 days
Questionnaire of Smoking Urges- brief version
This 2-item scale asks about intensity and frequency of urges.
Time frame: 6 days
Heart rate
Measured for 30 sec after sitting for 15 minutes
Time frame: 6 days
E-cigarette Purchase Task
This is a modification of the Cigarette Purchase Task that asks how much users would expend to obtain their usual amount of e-liquids to use.
Time frame: 6 days
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