Effect of high-dose nicotine patch on the characteristics of lapse episodes

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Who Took Part

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

Participants were smokers who lapsed during a randomized, double-blind trial of active patches (n = 100) versus placebo (n = 85).

Participants used electronic diaries to monitor their smoking, affect, and activities in real time for 5 weeks during their cessation attempt.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled 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 participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide), so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) could be set against what happens without it.

The methods mention a period of 5 weeks.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Administration, Cutaneous, Behavior, Addictive, Nicotine, Nicotinic Agonists, Recurrence, Smoking and Smoking Cessation.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) over 5 weeks.

Its findings take up roughly 6 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2010 (Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association), a journal based in United States.

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