Universidad del Pacífico, Asunción, Paraguay.
Universidad del Pacífico, Asunción, Paraguay.
Introduction: electronic cigarettes are devices whose purpose is to mimic the smoking experience. Although they are promoted as a less harmful alternative to conventional cigarettes, their effects on health are not harmless.
General objective: to determine the level of dependence on electronic cigarettes among medical students at the Universidad del Pacífico.
Methodology: a cross-sectional descriptive observational study was carried out where the IDCE questionnaire was applied to medical students during the month of July 2023, classifying them as non-dependent, with low dependence, with moderate dependence, dependence with signs of high dependence, high dependence.
Results: we studied 142 students with a mean age of 24 ± 5 years where 51,4 % (73) were male, 45,8 % (65) were from the Central Department and 34,5 % (49) from Asuncion.
It was found that 35,3 % (30) of those who smoked electronic cigarettes had a level of dependence with signs of high dependence, 30,6 % (26) had a moderate level of dependence and 12,9 % (11) had a high level of dependence.
Conclusion: the level of dependence found in this work was mainly with high dependence onset signs followed by high level dependence.
The article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Unless otherwise stated, associated published material is distributed under the same licence.
The statements, opinions and data contained in the journal are solely those of the individual authors and contributors and not of the publisher and the editor(s). We stay neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.