Evaluating Nicotine Craving, Withdrawal, and Substance Use as Mediators of Smoking Cessation in Cocaine- and Methamphetamine-Dependent Patients.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

Smoking is highly prevalent in substance dependence, but smoking-cessation treatment (SCT) is more challenging in this population.

This study characterized the presence, magnitude, and specificity of nicotine craving as a mediator of the relationship between SCT and smoking abstinence in the context of stimulant-dependence treatment.

Who Took Part

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

This study was a secondary analysis of a randomized, 10-week trial conducted at 12 outpatient SUD treatment programs.

Adults with cocaine and/or methamphetamine dependence (N = 538) were randomized to SUD treatment as usual (TAU) or TAU+SCT.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized.

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.

Participants reported nicotine craving, nicotine withdrawal symptoms, and substance use in the week following a uniform quit attempt of the TAU+SCT group, and self-reported smoking 7-day point prevalence abstinence (verified by carbon monoxide) at end-of-treatment.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Amphetamine-Related Disorders, Cocaine-Related Disorders, Craving, Nicotine, Smoking Cessation and Tobacco Use Disorder.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2016 (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.