Impact of electronic cigarette smoking on the Saudi population through the analysis of literature: A systematic review.

ABSTRACT

Tobacco usage is harming the health, the treasury and the spirit of Saudi Arabia. Every year, more than 7000 of its people are killed by tobacco-caused diseases. Still, more than 20,000 children and 3,352,000 adults continue to use tobacco each day. Likewise, the usage of electronic (e)-cigarette is also increasing; this could be because of the publicity and marketing strategies adopted by the manufacturers of these products which are attracting the younger population. This review was taken up to determine the usage and attitude toward e-cigarette smoking among the Saudi population through the analysis of literature. This review identified peer-reviewed articles using several search terms and databases from 2010 to 2018. PubMed, ISI-Web of Science, Medline and Google Scholar were searched using the following alternate terms for e-cigarettes electronic cigarettes, electronic nicotine delivery systems following which hand search was conducted through the reference list of articles. The search results only found descriptive data on these e-cigarettes among the Saudi population. This literature review reported that the usage of these e-cigarettes was high among this population and recorded a wide variety of reasons for using e-cigarettes. Reducing tobacco use, considering e-cigarette as less harmful, less addictive, for pleasure and peer influence, lower cost and curiosity were the most commonly reported reasons. Recognizing the dangerous impact of smoking and usage of other type of tobacco, the aggressive marketing of these e-cigarettes needs to be controlled.