Electronic Cigarette Smoking and Health-related Quality of Life: Findings between Nigeria and United States College and University Students.

Author

Musa Yahaya, Southern Illinois University CarbondaleFollow

Date of Award

6-1-2021

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Health Education

First Advisor

McDaniel, Justin

Abstract

The popularity of electronic cigarette use among youth and young adults is on the rise, especially among the 18-24 years old. There are millions of users across the globe—about 8.1 million users in the United States. There is no data from Nigeria. Reasons for using the product include the perception that it is a harm reduction tool, a means of quitting, and socialization. Factors associated include peer pressure, curiosity, the flavors used, and the device's fancy nature live a USB flash drive. HRQOL is a self-report, subjective assessment. It is a two-way concept: positive in terms of physical and mental wellness and negative in terms of diseases and illnesses. HRQOL is used to provide an estimate of lifestyle behaviors. A cross-sectional study design used for data collection among the Nigerian students and the use of 2018 BRFSS data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention using the BRFSS instrument of data collection Results obtained have shown a significant relationship between the lifestyle behaviors studied and higher scores of HRQOL among the students. The findings were contrary to the existing findings; however, given the impact of the lockdown due to the pandemic, restriction of social movement, strikes by the academic staff of Nigerian Universities for over ten months in 2020, and the nature of the study (self-report), could all be responsible for the findings of this study among other reasons.