(1330) Wisconsin Pharmacists' Perspectives on Their Role in Addressing the Adolescent Vaping Epidemic: An Exploratory Statewide Survey

Objectives: This study examined Wisconsin pharmacists’ perspectives on adolescent vaping, communication and engagement with families, and their role in addressing youth electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use. E-cigarettes are the most common tobacco product used by adolescents and negatively impacts lung function, stunts brain development, increases risk for nicotine addiction, and may lead to cigarette smoking initiation. Pharmacists are often engaged in smoking cessation and prevention, but limited information exists on their role in vaping cessation and prevention, particularly among adolescents.

Methods: An online survey instrument was developed to gather pharmacist perspectives on adolescent vaping. The survey consisted of 58 questions with “yes” or “no” responses, 5-point Likert scale responses, multiple-choice responses, and a few open-ended responses. Main topics of the survey were pharmacist’s own vaping knowledge and education, experience with tobacco and vaping counseling, engagement with adolescents and parents, pharmacist’s role in addressing adolescent vaping, barriers and self-efficacy to overcome barriers to addressing adolescent vaping, strategies for vaping education for adolescents and parents, and demographics. Open from September 2022 to January 2023, the Qualtrics survey was sent to Wisconsin pharmacists through recruitment emails from three pharmacy organizations: PearlRx (practice-based research network of Wisconsin pharmacists), Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin (statewide association of Wisconsin pharmacy professionals), and Forward Pharmacy (independent pharmacy with 5 locations in Wisconsin). Eligible participants were practicing Wisconsin pharmacists with English fluency. Close-ended survey questions were summarized with descriptive statistics via StataSE 17.0 statistical software. Open-ended survey responses were analyzed with inductive content analysis via NVivo 17 software.

Results: From 111 survey responses, respondents were 65% female, 80% white, and a mean age of 38.2 years. Most participants practiced in community (50%), hospital (22%), or ambulatory care (19%) and were staff pharmacists (30%), lead pharmacists (22%), or clinical pharmacists (34%). Although most participants considered adolescent vaping to be an important problem in their communities (72%), they reported limited knowledge on vaping. At best, 35% knew about the health consequences of vaping, and at worst, 5% were familiar with vaping policies and regulations. Over 85% of participants never received any education or training on vaping, but nearly all were interested in continuing education (95%). Half of participants (49%) had patients ask them about vaping, primarily focused on e-cigarette safety, comparison to traditional cigarettes, health consequences of vaping, use of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation, vaping cessation options, and drug interactions with e-cigarettes. Participants did report having at least some engagement with middle schoolers (32%), high schoolers (48%), and parents of adolescents (55%) in their pharmacy practice. Over 90% of participants agreed that pharmacists should educate adolescents and parents on vaping and support vaping cessation through referral to external resources like quit lines or providers. However, the main barriers to pharmacists providing vaping services were lack of training for pharmacists (82%), time constraints (81%), and lack of resources to share (82%). Though 11% of participants felt they could overcome these barriers on their own, over 70% of them would feel more comfortable and confident in addressing adolescent vaping if at least some of these barriers were overcome. The top strategies for connecting with and educating adolescents and parents on vaping were to share immediate consequences of youth vaping (81%) and sharing resources on the pharmacy’s website and social media platforms (76%). Around half of participants were interested in playing a role for prevention and reduction of adolescent vaping (44%) and willing to engage in this role (55%).

Conclusions: Pharmacists are undereducated and underutilized in addressing adolescent vaping, despite being uniquely positioned as substance and drug experts with immense potential for this role. Future studies should examine best practices for training pharmacists in youth vaping prevention and cessation.