Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2009 May;11(5):475-80.
doi: 10.1093/ntr/ntp035. Epub 2009 Apr 3.

Assessing the outcomes of prolonged cessation-induction and aid-to-cessation trials: floating prolonged abstinence

Paul Aveyard  1 , Dechao Wang, Martin Connock, Anne Fry-Smith, Pelham Barton, David Moore
Affiliations

Assessing the outcomes of prolonged cessation-induction and aid-to-cessation trials: floating prolonged abstinence

Paul Aveyard et al. Nicotine Tob Res. 2009 May.

Abstract

Introduction: A Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco working group recommended outcome measures for cessation-induction trials and aid-to-cessation trials. Cessation-induction trials aim to motivate unwilling quitters to make a quit attempt. Aid-to-cessation trials give either medication or behavioral interventions to increase the rate at which willing quitters succeed in their attempts. Nicotine-assisted reduction programs combine features of both types of interventions by giving nicotine replacement to unwilling quitters. Treatment can be prolonged more than a year, quit attempts can occur and succeed early or late in the program, and renewed quit attempts are an inherent part of the program. Conventional outcome measures are tied to a fixed but arbitrary point in follow-up and cannot capture the true outcome: Prolonged cessation anchored to the point at which a person makes a successful quit attempt.

Discussion: We propose that the outcome should be counted from the successful quit attempt that began during the treatment period and continues for a defined period, ideally 6 months. In particular, if a trial compared a short reduction program with a long reduction program, it would not be possible to obtain an unbiased assessment of the outcome of such a trial using a measure tied to a fixed point in follow-up. Floating prolonged abstinence could provide such an assessment and is suitable for either prolonged cessation-induction trial or combined cessation-induction and aid-to-cessation trials.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Possible outcomes from a prolonged treatment trial. s, Smoking; Q, quit.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Aveyard P, Griffin C, Lawrence PT, Cheng KK. A controlled trial of an expert system and self-help manual intervention based on the stages of change versus standard self-help materials in smoking cessation. Addiction. 2003;98:345–354. - PubMed
    1. Batra A, Klingler K, Landfeldt B, Friederich HM, Westin A, Danielsson T. Smoking reduction treatment with 4-mg nicotine gum: A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study. Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics. 2005;78:689–696. - PubMed
    1. Bolliger CT, Zellweger JP, Danielsson T, van Biljon X., Robidou A, Westin A, et al. Smoking reduction with oral nicotine inhalers: Double blind, randomised clinical trial of efficacy and safety. British Medical Journal. 2000;321:329–333. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cahill K, Stead LF, Lancaster T. Nicotine receptor partial agonists for smoking cessation. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2007 3, Art. No.: CD006103; doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD006103.pub3. - PubMed
    1. Etter J.-F., Laszlo E, Zellweger J.-P., Perrot C, Perneger TV. Nicotine replacement to reduce cigarette consumption in smokers who are unwilling to quit: A randomized trial. Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology. 2002;22:487–495. - PubMed

Publication types