Response to nicotine dependence treatment in smokers with current and past alcohol problems.

What Was Tested

This controlled clinical trial looks at Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

The Self-Administered Alcoholism Screening Test (SAAST) score was used to determine alcohol group assignment (no alcohol problems < 7; active alcohol problems > or = 7 and still drinking; past alcohol problems if not drinking due to a past history of alcohol problems).

Why It Was Studied

Smoking prevalence among alcoholics is high, and evidence indicates that smokers with a history of alcohol abuse may have more difficulty quitting cigarette smoking.

This study is a post hoc analysis comparing the smoking cessation rates of smokers with active or past alcohol problems to the rates in smokers with no history of alcohol problems who were participants in a randomized, controlled trial of smoking cessation therapy.

Who Took Part

The study group was 382 subjects.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and multicenter study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the subjects nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide), so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Running at several centres spread the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) study over different clinics and patient groups.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Administration, Cutaneous, Alcoholism, Nicotine, Nicotinic Agonists, Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic, Smoking and Smoking Cessation.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and multicenter study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) in 382 subjects.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

The publication is from 1999 (Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine), a journal based in England.

More context: the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) compound page, all human trials.