Australian teenagers’ mental health problems linked to vaping, study finds | Vaping

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Australian teenagers’ mental health problems linked to vaping, study finds | Vaping

Australian high school students with symptoms of severe depression or poor wellbeing are twice as likely to have tried vaping, a new study has found.

The study also found one-fifth of students in years 7 and 8 had moderate to severe depression symptoms and demonstrated the need for early intervention targeting both mental health and vaping, experts said.

More than 5,000 students aged 12 to 14 were surveyed in 2023 for the study as part of the OurFutures vaping prevention program led by the University of Sydney’s Matilda Centre.

Teenagers from 40 schools across New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia answered questions on topics including drug use and vaping, possible future drug use and mental health, including symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and low wellbeing.

The results, published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, showed one-third of the cohort reported poor wellbeing, another third had high stress and one-fifth had high anxiety.

Students who reported moderate or high stress levels were 74% or 64% more likely to have tried vaping, respectively, than those who reported low levels of stress, though anxiety levels seemed to have little relationship with vape use.

Rising rates of vaping and poor mental health made the close association between the two even more concerning, according to the University of Sydney associate professor Emily Stockings, a co-author of the study.

“If we want to try to improve mental health and we want to try to prevent vaping, clearly we’ve got to do these two things together,” she said.

The share of students in years 7 through to 12 who have vaped in the past month almost quadrupled from 2017 to 2022/23, while two-fifths of Australians aged 16 to 24 have experienced a mental disorder within the last year.

The results demonstrated the importance of early effective mental health support for young teenagers, according to Michelle Jongenelis, an associate professor at the University of Melbourne.

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About 8% of students aged 12 to 14 had ever tried vaping and about 2% had vaped in the last month, according to the paper.

Those figures rose to about 24% and 13% respectively for the older 12- to 15-year-old age group, according to the nationwide Australian secondary students’ alcohol and drug survey.

Students in the OurFutures study had an average age of 13, while mental health issues and substance use have previously been found to begin at about 14 years of age.

“It’s a critical period for development [when] they have just started high school,” Jongenelis said. “We need to be doing a better job of … supporting them so that they don’t turn to vapes to help with their anxiety or stress or depression.”

Only one in 20 students surveyed attended an educationally disadvantaged school and the study did not survey public schools, which Stockings said amounted to a slight limitation.

“We weren’t able to go into government schools and potentially [hear from] the kids who are the most vulnerable, the most disadvantaged, or the schools that have the most problems,” Stockings said.

The study added to previous research suggesting a connection between nicotine use and mental health issues but could not offer an explanation as data was drawn from a single point in time.

While the study did not explain the link between mental health and vape use, it was the first part of ongoing research in the OurFutures program, with students to answer further surveys after completing training courses helping them understand and avoid vape use.

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