Cigarette craving and withdrawal symptoms during temporary abstinence and the effect of nicotine gum.

What Was Tested

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

To examine the emergence of cigarette craving and withdrawal symptoms during temporary abstinence in a naturalistic setting while using either nicotine or placebo gum.

Why It Was Studied

It is widely believed that nicotine withdrawal symptoms appear within a few hours of stopping smoking, but few data exist documenting their emergence in naturalistic settings.

In several countries, nicotine replacement products are licensed for relief of withdrawal symptoms during temporary abstinence, but again, there are no data supporting this from naturalistic settings.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are young adults, adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

Outcome measures were ratings of craving and mood withdrawal symptoms prior to treatment and at regular intervals during abstinence.

How the Study Was Run

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

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.

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

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

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Nicotine, Smoking, Smoking Cessation, Substance Withdrawal Syndrome and Tobacco Use Cessation Devices.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

Its findings take up roughly 5 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2013 (Psychopharmacology), a journal based in Germany.

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