Inability to Recruit Adolescents for a Vaping Cessation Clinical Trial Within a Large Pediatric Health System
E-cigarette use among adolescents is epidemic, putting children at risk for significant harm. E-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco product among youth, with over 20% of high school students reporting current use. Harmful toxicants and known carcinogens are found in the solutions, emissions, and bodies of e-cigarette users. The absence of evidence-based treatment recommendations for adolescent e-cigarette use indicates the need for research designed to identify effective interventions. Furthermore, few lessons learned from clinical trial research to treat adolescents for combustible tobacco products can be applied to e-cigarette research. Progress has been limited by difficulty identifying adolescents interested in treatment, enrolling them in trials, and maintaining treatment engagement. A recent negative trial investigating varenicline use for adolescent cigarette cessation took 5 years to complete recruitment for a relatively small sample size (n = 157).