A significant number of teens who try vaping have never smoked, a study suggests.

Researchers from the Tobacco Free Research Institute Ireland said the proportion of 16 and 17-year-olds who had tried e-cigarettes had increased from 23 per cent in 2014 to 39 per cent in 2019.

The 39 per cent of adolescents who said they had tried e-cigarettes compares with 32 per cent who had tried smoking.

And 68 per cent of those who had tried e-cigarettes said that they had never tried smoking.

The main reasons teenagers gave for trying e-cigarettes were curiosity (66 per cent) and because their friends were vaping (29 per cent), according to figures from thousands of teenagers.

Only three per cent said it was to quit smoking.

Meanwhile, researchers said youngsters whose parents were smokers were 55 per cent more likely to try e-cigarettes.

The research, presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress in Barcelona, Spain, also found these youngsters were 51 per cent more likely to have tried smoking.

"We have found increasing use of e-cigarettes in Irish teenagers and that's a pattern that is emerging elsewhere in the world," said Professor Luke Clancy, director general of the institute.

"There's a perception that vaping is a better alternative to smoking, but our research shows that this doesn't apply to teenagers who usually haven't tried cigarettes prior to e-cigarettes.

"This indicates that, for teens, vaping is a route into nicotine addiction, rather than out of it."

Lead researcher Joan Hanafin said "the number of teenagers using e-cigarettes is changing fast, so we need to keep monitoring the situation in Ireland and around the world".

"We also plan to study social media to understand how this influences girls' and boys' vaping behaviour.

Professor Jonathan Grigg, chair of the European Respiratory Society's Tobacco Control Committee, said the findings were worrying.

"Not just for teenagers in Ireland, but for families all around the world," he said.

Earlier this year, a separate report from Action on Smoking and Health concluded the proportion of children vaping is on the rise, with many being influenced by social media sites such as TikTok.