Nicotine e-cigarettes for smoking cessation following discharge from smoke-free inpatient alcohol and other drug withdrawal services: a pragmatic two-arm, single-blinded, parallel-group, randomised controlled trial.

What Was Tested

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

National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.

Who Took Part

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

The majority of this study took place in the community after the participants were discharged from inpatient stay.

Adults who were tobacco smokers (motivated to quit; not using e-cigarettes) from five smoke-free inpatient withdrawal services in Australia were recruited and randomly assigned by computer using stratified block (1:1) to receive a 12-week supply of either e-cigarettes or combination nicotine replacement therapy (cNRT) with Quitline behavioural counselling on discharge.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, single-blind and parallel-group 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.

In this single-blind Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) study one party knew the assignments and the other did not.

Groups ran in parallel: each of the participants stayed in one arm throughout.

The researchers conducted a pragmatic, two-arm, single-blinded, parallel-group randomised controlled trial.

Participants were advised to use e-cigarettes as much or as often as necessary or desired and cNRT according to instructions.

Researchers collecting outcome data were masked to treatment group.

The primary outcome was 7 months continuous tobacco smoking abstinence as measured at 9 months after randomisation.

The primary analysis was performed using an intention-to-treat approach, with sensitivity analyses following per-protocol, treatment adherence, and complete case analysis approaches.

What Was Measured

Serious adverse events were classified by a physician as non-serious or serious and causality assessed.

The subject headings attached to it are Smoking Cessation, Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems, Australia, Patient Discharge, Inpatients, Substance Withdrawal Syndrome and Tobacco Use Cessation Devices.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, single-blind and parallel-group study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

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 2025 (The Lancet. Public health), a journal based in England.

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