Effects of the nicotine patch on performance during the first week of smoking cessation

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide), published as a randomized controlled trial.

Complaints of feeling unfocused and being unable to concentrate are common during smoking cessation, and such feelings may contribute to a subtle erosion of the motivation to quit.

Participants were trained to stable performance on simple reaction time, mathematical processing, Sternberg memory, rapid visual-information processing, grammatical reasoning, and the Stroop Color-Word (Stroop) tasks.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 10 women were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

The women were allocated by chance, so the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Blinding on both sides kept the women and researchers unaware of who received Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

Some women received a placebo instead of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide), giving a reference point.

Performance was assessed prior to cessation, and early (days 2 and 3) and late (days 5 through 7) in the first cessation week.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Administration, Cutaneous, Cognition, Linguistics, Mathematics, Memory, Nicotine and Nicotinic Agonists.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) in 10 women.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The publication is from 2003 (Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco), a journal based in England.

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