Cravings, Control, and Cessation: A Scoping Review of Perceptions of Nicotine Addiction

Abstract

Purpose of review: Nicotine addiction is the result of repeated tobacco use and subsequently promotes continued consumption, potentially acting as both cause and consequence of tobacco use. This scoping review aims to describe the literature and catalogue existing measures regarding perceptions of nicotine addiction with special attention to scales that recognize its multidimensionality.

Recent findings: Following a comprehensive review of 923 empirical articles, we found 252 articles that assessed perceptions of nicotine addiction, five of which utilized a validated measure. Single item assessments were categorized into affective concern, knowledge that tobacco is addictive, personal perceptions of addiction, other people's addiction, and comparative addictiveness. Scaled measures of perceptions of nicotine addiction largely assessed perceived susceptibility and severity.

Summary: Despite decades of research demonstrating the importance of perceptions of risk and expectancies in risk-behavior decision-making, tools and items assessing perceptions of nicotine addiction are highly varied and do not account for the multidimensionality of nicotine addiction. We, as a field, lack a comprehensive assessment of perceptions of nicotine addiction that integrates the complexity of addiction into an individual's appraisal of risk, which is a critical component of prevention and intervention-based research.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40429-025-00673-4.

Keywords: Addiction; Nicotine; Perceptions of addiction; Tobacco.

Fig. 1

Review of Eligible Literature (PRISMA)