Immediate hedonic response to smoking lapses: relationship to smoking relapse, and effects of nicotine replacement therapy.

What Was Tested

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

Smoking lapses represent an important juncture between smoking cessation and relapse.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 169 subjects taking part.

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

Following their first lapse, using an electronic diary, subjects recorded the amount they smoked, and rated the pleasantness and satisfaction ("hedonic rating") and the aversiveness of smoking.

Subjects were then followed and assessed for further lapses and relapses.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled.

Because people in this Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

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.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) group a baseline to be compared against.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Administration, Cutaneous, Affect, Attitude, Behavior Therapy, Nicotine, Reinforcement, Psychology and Risk Assessment.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) in 169 subjects.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2006 (Psychopharmacology), a journal based in Germany.

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