Exposure to e-cigarette content on social media and its association with risk perception, perceived benefits, and...

This study investigates college students' overall perceptions of vaping, risk perceptions, and perceived benefits of e-cigarettes through the lens of the Health Belief Model (HBM), in relation to social media use and exposure to e-cigarette-related conten.

This cross-sectional study used validated and reliable measures to assess perceptions of e-cigarettes among college students (n = 1,897) at a large university in Saudi Arabia via an online survey. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were performed, including bivariate and multivariate analyses, such as exploratory factor analysis, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, Mann-Whitney U tests, linear regression, and binary logistic regression.

The findings suggested that the majority of college students (90%) use social media daily, and more than 57% of students who had seen e-cigarette-related content reported encountering it through influencer or followed accounts. The findings showed that exposure to e-cigarette content on social media was not associated with regular vaping, whereas with modest explanatory power, greater risk perception was associated with lower vaping use among college students [OR = 0.93, 95% CI (0.88, 0.97), p = .002]. Most college students (83%) had never vaped or smoked, yet those who vape had higher perceived benefits and lower risk perceptions than those who had not vaped.

Unlike other studies conducted among teens and adolescents, our study did not find significant relationships between exposure to e-cigarette content on social media and vaping use. However, perceived benefits and risk perceptions were found to be significantly associated with the overall vaping perceptions and vaping use among college students. The study ultimately shows that although exposure to e-cigarette content is common on social media, it does not appear to meaningfully shape how college students judge the risks of vaping.