Ordinary enough to share, prohibited enough to hide: an Interpretative phenomenological analysis of adolescent vaping in Western China

Background Adolescent vaping is commonly addressed through risk education and sales restrictions, yet these approaches may overlook the social, emotional, material, and temporal meanings that sustain use. This study explored how adolescents in western China experienced and made sense of e-cigarette use.Methods Fifteen adolescents aged 16–18 years were recruited from three senior high schools, a mental health outpatient clinic, and a smoking-cessation outpatient clinic. Semi-structured interviews were conducted face to face (n = 6) or online (n = 9) and analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The Process–Person–Context–Time model was introduced after the idiographic and cross-case analyses as a sensitizing framework.Results Six Group Experiential Themes formed the acronym VAPING: visibility before danger, access and concealment, peer connection, emotional relief, uncertainty about harm, and growing dependence behind perceived control. Vaping was experienced as socially meaningful, emotionally functional, materially enabled, and increasingly difficult to interrupt for some participants.Conclusion Adolescent vaping cannot be understood solely as nicotine use, poor risk knowledge, or rule-breaking. Prevention should combine coherent adult communication, stronger youth-access enforcement, regulation of youth-oriented product appeal, peer-connection opportunities, accessible mental-health support, credible risk communication, and confidential cessation care.