Product attributes important to US adult consumers' use of electronic nicotine delivery systems: a discrete choice experiment.

Abstract

To understand the importance of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) product attributes to adult consumers in the USA by age and gender. Cross-sectional survey with a discrete choice experiment (best-worst, case 2, scaling) of 19 choice tasks in which participants answered what would make them most want to use and least want to use an ENDS product. A national sample of adults (aged 18+ years) in the USA who had tried an ENDS product at least once. We included 9 ENDS attributes with levels that varied across 19 choice tasks. We performed a multinomial logistic regression to obtain overall importance scores, attribute-level part-worth utilities and most important attribute. Of 660 participants, 81% were white, 51% women and 37% had at least a 4-year college degree with an average age of 42.0 years (SD ±19.4). The attributes had the following importance: <i>harms of use</i> 17.6%; <i>general effects</i> 14.1%; <i>cessation aid</i> 12.6%; <i>purchase price</i> 12.1%; <i>monthly cost</i> 12.0%; <i>nicotine content</i> 11.4%; <i>flavour availability</i> 8.4%; <i>device design</i> 7.2%; <i>modifiability</i> 4.6%. <i>Harms of use</i> was the most important attribute for all ages and genders (p<0.05); variation in other important attributes existed by age though not by gender. This study identified the importance of nine ENDS attributes. Perceived <i>harms of use</i> of ENDS use appeared most important, and <i>modifiability</i> was least important. Variation by consumer group existed, which may allow for targeted interventions to modify ENDS use.