Nicotine and Tobacco Research

Running head: CRITICAL APPRAISAL
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Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

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Paper 1
Dockrell, M., Morrison, R., Bauld, L., & McNeill, A. (2013). E-cigarettes: prevalence and
attitudes in Great Britain. Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 15(10), 1737-1744.
https://doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntt057
The use of the e-cigarettes among the adolescents have increased in the recent years and
there are several studies that have shown that higher rates of e-cigarettes are being used than that
of combustible use of cigarettes among the high school students (Barrington-Trimis et al., 2016).
In spite of this, it is difficult to state that whether e-cigarettes will be able to replace the normal
combustible cigarettes or they do not have any side effects. Furthermore, there are very less
studies studying about the perception of the common people about the use of the e-cigarettes.
This paper aims to understand the attitudes of those staying in Great Britain about the use
of electronic cigarettes and whether these cigarettes can really replace the cigarettes. E-cigarettes
can provide similar sensation to inhaling of the tobacco smoking without the use of smoke.
The authors have given some meaningful justifications regarding the use of the e-
cigarettes. The researchers have admitted about the myriads of deaths that hold smoking as one
of their predisposing factors. It has been stated by the authors that e-cigarettes are of great
interest to those people who are unable to quit smoking as it causes partial replacement of the
tobacco. As stated by the author, the use of the e—cigarettes can cause reduction of the mortality
and morbidity associated to smoking. Similar advantages have been proposed by McNeill et al.,
(2015) where individuals who don’t want to quit smoking can be encouraged to use e-cigarettes.
(Pearson et al., (2013) on the other hand have also emphasized on the harmful effects of using e-
cigarettes, such as encouraging the adolescent towards cigarettes, who otherwise wouldn’t have

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had cigarettes. However, there are individuals who have not used cigarettes but have had e-
cigarettes thinking that it is less helpful. There are very few papers regarding the perception of
the people regarding the use of the e-cigarettes. Thus the author’s justification to conduct the
research is justified.
A research question needs to be clear and focused giving a clear idea of the aim of the
research and should synthesize multiple sources for presenting the argument. This paper has put
forward a well-developed research question stating the aim as well as the target audience, who
are smokers and the ex-smokers in Great Britain.
The method employs the findings from the qualitative and the quantitative researches of
the smokers in Great Britain that has been conducted in 2010. The participants were recruited
from the panel of the adults in Britain that has been done by the polling company YouGov. The
socio-demographic information of respondents has been recorded at the time of the recruitment.
The paper has provided detailed description of the screening questions that needs to be used for
the qualitative study.
The papers has aimed to consider the findings from the qualitative as well as the
quantitative researches of the Smokers in Great Britain in the year 2010 to 2012. The review
consisted of qualitative researches where the smokers have been selected and invited for
participating in the qualitative research. Face to face focus group discussions has been
conducted. Qualitative papers have been used in this review in order to understand the perception
of the people and to have an in-depth understanding of the ways individuals came to understand,
act and manage certain heath behaviors (Anfara Jr & Mertz, 2014). This study has also used the
2010 population Survey, where the smokers were assessed to understand the level of awareness

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of the e-cigarettes. Reports from the surveys has been included as they provide an actual and true
representation of the actual population. The paper have used descriptive statistics on the e-
cigarettes prevalence obtained from the data obtained from the survey. A Rao-Scott chi square
test has been used for measuring the survey results. Rao-Scott chi square test is an adjusted
version of the Pearson chi square test that helps to understand the difference between the
expected and the observed frequencies. The result section of the paper is followed by a
discussion part having ample resources obtained from other resources. One of the most
interesting part of the paper is that all the findings have been segregated in several sections.
However, the paper has not provided details about how the search has been conducted, that is
how the relevant papers have been chosen.
Each and every paper has a range of the strengths and weaknesses that provides scope to
the other researchers for conducting further researches relevant to the topic. It also helps to locate
the literature gap in the relevant fields of research. The paper has rightfully pointed out the
strengths and the limitations of the study, that is the surveys sample have been taken from an
online panel thus cannot be generalized to the entire population, especially the ones without an
internet access. The perception of the online panel might differ from that of the actual
population. Again, the sample size of the chosen papers are not big, thus reducing the power and
the reliability of the study. Secondly, in the 2010 survey only those who were current smokers
could only be asked about the use of e-cigarettes, but the trends among the ex-smokers cannot be
found out. Furthermore, the population data also did not include the reasons why the smokers
tried to use e-cigarettes or whether the ex-smokers started using the e-cigarettes while still nit
smoking the conventional cigarettes. Hence, the attitudes of the cigarette smokers might be
different from that of the present day smokers. The main strength of the survey, is that paper is