Using psychological insights to help people quit smoking.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Nicotine, published as a randomized controlled trial.

This paper sets out to evaluate the possibility that smoking cessation interventions which make use of current psychological theories and constructs can be more successful than programmes based largely on nicotine replacement therapy and will be more satisfying to participants.

Why It Was Studied

Nicotine replacement therapy is currently the most widely used method for helping smokers give up the habit.

Typically three quarters of smokers given nicotine replacement are smoking again one year later.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults, both men and women.

Smokers recruited via publicity in the local media were randomly assigned to one of two treatment conditions.

The first condition consisted of a series of group sessions in which volunteers were instructed in nicotine replacement, and a number of psychological techniques, the most important being cognitive counter conditioning.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Nicotine and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

The second condition was identical to the first but without the cognitive counter conditioning.

Finally background quit rate was determined using waiting list controls.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Behavior Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Combined Modality Therapy, Jamaica, Linear Models, Nicotine and Psychological Theory.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Nicotine.

Results are reported in around 4 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2001 (Journal of advanced nursing), a journal based in England.

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