Curiosity predicts smoking experimentation independent of susceptibility in a US national sample

Abstract

Purpose To improve smoking prevention efforts, better methods for identifying at-risk youth are needed. The widely used measure of susceptibility to smoking identifies at-risk adolescents; however, it correctly identifies only about one third of future smokers. Adding curiosity about smoking to this susceptibility index may allow us to identify a greater proportion of future smokers while they are still pre-teens. Methods We use longitudinal data from a recent national study on parenting to prevent problem behaviors. Only oldest children between 10-13 years of age were eligible. Participants were identified by RDD survey and followed for 6 years. All baseline never smokers with at least one follow-up assessment were included (n=878). The association of curiosity about smoking with future smoking behavior was assessed. Then, curiosity was added to form an enhanced susceptibility index and sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive value were calculated. Results Among committed never smokers at baseline, those who were ‘definitely not curious’ were less likely to progress towards smoking than both those who were ‘probably not curious’ (ORadj =1.89; 95% CI=1.03-3.47) or ‘probably/definitely curious’ (ORadj=2.88; 95% CI=1.11-7.45). Incorporating curiosity into the susceptibility index increased the proportion identified as at-risk to smoke from 25.1% to 46.9%., The sensitivity (true positives) for this enhanced susceptibility index for both experimentation and established smoking increased from 37-40% to over 50%., although the positive predictive value did not improve. Conclusion The addition of curiosity significantly improves the identification and classification of which adolescents will experiment with smoking or become established smokers.

E-Cigarettes and Future Cigarette Use

“…[7][8][9][10][11][12][13] E-cigarette users, representing several age groups and geographic locations, had 2 to 4 times the odds of indicating an intention to use cigarettes as never users, 7,8 results consistent with those we reported in the CHS. 9 To date there have been 3 reports from prospective cohort studies examining the relationship between e-cigarette use and subsequent initiation of combustible cigarette use in adolescence, including a study of 9th-grade students (mean age 14.1), 14 a second study of 9th and 10th-grade students (mean age 14.7), 15 and another small study of 16-to 26-year-olds, with few never-smoking e-cigarette users at baseline that was not able to examine associations within specific developmental periods in this age range.…”

“…Adolescents were classified as having no susceptibility if they responded "definitely not" to questions about intention to initiate use of cigarettes in the future. 10 …”

“…10,11,13 In the current study, susceptibility to future cigarette use was assessed using validated measures (see Supplemental Material). Adolescents were classified as having no susceptibility if they responded "definitely not" to questions about intention to initiate use of cigarettes in the future.…”

Receptivity to Tobacco Advertising and Susceptibility to Tobacco Products

“…Following previous research, 23,24 never users who had heard of the product were classified as either susceptible to use or committed never users on the basis of their responses to 3 questions assessing their curiosity about the product, intention to try it in the near future, and likely response if a best friend were to offer them the product (see Supplemental Information). Only those with the strongest rejection to all 3 questions were categorized as committed never users to each of the following 8 products (cigarettes, e-cigarettes, pipes, cigars, hookahs, smokeless tobacco, dissolvable tobacco, and bidis/kreteks).…”

Smoke-free homes, smoking susceptibility and familial smoking among never-smoking high school students: a cross-sectional analysis

“…Such work should employ an updated version of the smoking susceptibility scale, 30 which now includes a measure of curiosity, which has been shown to improve the prediction of smoking initiation.…”