The global research neglect of unassisted smoking cessation: Causes and consequences

The global research neglect of unassisted smoking cessation: Causes and consequences [1]

As with problem drinking, gambling, and narcotics use population studies show consistently that a large majority of smokers who permanently stop smoking do so without any form of assistance. In 2003, some 20 years after the introduction of cessation pharmacotherapies, smokers trying to stop unaided in the past year were twice as numerous as those using pharmacotherapies and only 8.8% of US quit attempters used a behavioural treatment. Moreover, despite the pharmaceutical industry's efforts to promote pharmacologically mediated cessation and numerous clinical trials demonstrating the efficacy of pharmacotherapy, the most common method used by most people who have successfully stopped smoking remains unassisted cessation (cold turkey or reducing before quitting). In 1986, the American Cancer Society reported that:

Publication Date:

01/02/2010

Author(s): Simon Chapman [2], Ross MacKenzie [3]

Source: PLoS Medicine [4]

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