Zeitschrift für Suchtforschung und -therapie

Abstrakt

Real-Time Characterization of E-Cigarettes Use: The 1 Million Puffs Study

Bertrand Dautzenberg and Damien Bricard

The use of the electronic cigarette is now common, but the characteristic of its use remains largely unknown.

Method: We have analysed the parameters of 1 million puffs recorded by a connected e-cigarette (Smokio^®).

Results: 2,001 to 23,123 puffs (median=5,405) had been produced by each of the 185 users during the 116 days of the study period. The mean puffs number by user/day is 163±138 (median: 132) with large variations between users and days for the same user. The number of puffs/day decreases significantly on week-ends compared to the first 3 days of the week (-4.60%; p<0.001). The number of puffs/hour is stable from 10:00-10:00 pm but decreases during the night time. The mean puffs duration is of 3.79±1.89s (median=3.40s). Mean puffs duration increases from 3.40±1.33s the first day of use to 4.11±1.55s after 60 days (p<0.001).

The mean duration of puffs is higher for isolated puffs (4.57±2.24s) than for series >15 puffs (3.20±1.61s) (p<0.001). The puff series contains a median of 7 consecutive puffs (mean 11.68±14.52). During the first 60-day of use, the rate of isolated puff increased from 8.14% to 11.25% (p<0.001) and the mean number of puffs by series decreased from 6.78.±8.13 to 4.66±5.07 (p<0.001). During the same 60 days of use, the number of puffs/day decreased from 209 to 127 and the puffs are less often isolated (9.28%).

Conclusions: These results may help to better characterize the use of e-cigarettes in real-world and to propose setting of electronic cigarette testing machine to characterize e-liquid emissions.