A randomized, placebo-controlled trial of N-acetylcysteine plus imaginal desensitization for nicotine-dependent pathological gamblers.

What Was Tested

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

This study examined the addition of N-acetylcysteine to imaginal desensitization in adults with co-occurring nicotine dependence and pathological gambling.

Who Took Part

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

Twenty-eight individuals with co-occurring DSM-IV nicotine dependence and pathological gambling who were receiving behavioral therapy were recruited from December 2009 to February 2012 and randomized to augmentation with N-acetylcysteine or placebo in an 12-week, double-blind trial.

How the Study Was Run

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

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.

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

The primary outcomes were the Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence and the pathological gambling adaptation of the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Acetylcysteine, Combined Modality Therapy, Comorbidity, Desensitization, Psychologic, Expectorants, Gambling and Imagination.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

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 2014 (The Journal of clinical psychiatry), a journal based in United States.

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