Holistic Health Show

A study reported in the online journal Addiction concluded that stopping smoking cessation interventions too soon may reduce success rates by up to 45%. They believe current treatment theories that consider any smoking after a planned quit date a failure need to be updated to incorporate two types of successful quitters. These are the smokers who quit immediately and remain smoke free throughout the treatment, and those who delay smoking cessation but achiever success by the end of the treatment. The researchers believe that considering a theory in which smokers who do not stop smoking immediately as a failure may discourage both the health care provider and the patient from finishing the program.

In their study using data from two identically designed studies conducted in 2005 they included 2,052 healthy adult smokers who randomly received either a smoking cessation drug or a placebo for 12 weeks of treatment and 40 weeks of follow up. All subjects received brief smoking cessation counseling during clinic visits and investigators were unaware of individual treatment assignments.

The researchers defined successful quitters as those who did not smoke during the last 4 weeks of treatment and two groups were identified as discussed earlier-immediate and delayed quitters. They found quitting patterns were similar whether the subjects were in the drug or placebo group and even though the delayed quitters did not fare as well as the immediate quitters at the end of the 12 week treatment period they accounted for about 1/3 of those who remained continuously abstinent at the end of the 12 month period regardless of treatment group. The authors concluded that smoking cessation interventions should be continued for motivated patients despite lack of success during the first 8 weeks to increase their overall success rates.