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The Theory of Planned Behaviour in the Context of Electronic Cigarette Use

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Thesis(6.74 MB)

Date

2022

Authors

Supervisor

Wood, Jay
Landhuis, Erik
Davies, Sharyn

Item type

Degree name

Doctor of Philosophy

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Publisher

Auckland University of Technology

Abstract

Smoking is recognised as one of the world’s leading causes of preventable deaths. It is common knowledge that combustible cigarettes and exposure to the second-hand smoke they produce causes significant and sometimes fatal harms. Governments and health-organisations from around the world have attempted to develop numerous strategies to help reduce these harms. One of these methods is to encourage cessation amongst those who already smoke. Unfortunately, quitting cigarettes has been proven to be a difficult task with very low success rates. Research has shown that these rates can be improved by incorporating cessation tools into quit attempts. While there are several options available, one of the most popular methods in recent years has been e-cigarettes. The relative safety of these devices, however, had led to them also being used by non-smokers. To better understand the factors that influence people’s intentions to use e-cigarettes, the aim of this thesis was to determine the predictive utility of the Theory of Planned Behaviour when applied to the behaviour of vaping. A mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods was used to achieve this goal. The first phase of the study incorporated a thematic analysis of qualitative content from a variety of sources. Newspaper articles, publications by government health-organisations, and online forum posts were used to help identify which elements may come into play when an individual is deciding whether to use e-cigarettes. The information from this analysis was then incorporated into the design and construction of the second phase of the project. This second step involved the distribution of an anonymous, online survey which was completed by a sample of 329 respondents. To test the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the questionnaire measured attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, as well as intentions towards e-cigarettes. Additional variables – self-concept, social identification, attention to and the perceived credibility of vaping news, and nicotine dependence – were also assessed to determine if they could improve upon the original model. The findings of this study demonstrated that the Theory of Planned Behaviour can be successfully applied to e-cigarette use and that this model is about to account for a considerable amount of variance within respondents’ intentions to use e-cigarettes over the next six months. It was found that the factors which held the greatest influence over participants’ intentions were – how certain they were regular vaping would result in undesirable consequences, how favourably they believed referents would respond to their decision to use e-cigarettes daily, and whether they believed certain obstacles would prevent them from vaping. Incorporating respondents’ general attitudes towards e-cigarettes and whether they believed that vaping could assist with smoking cessation resulted in small improvements to the model’s predictive capabilities. The results of this thesis have promising real-world applications. By understanding which particular elements influence the decision to use e-cigarettes, researchers can incorporate this knowledge into the construction of interventions whose goal is to affect vaping behaviour. This could be applied to programmes that encourage smokers to consider using e-cigarettes in their future cessation attempts, as well as educational programmes whose purpose is to dissuade non-smoking youth from vaping.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10292/16325

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Doctoral Theses