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FRIDAY, July 4, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- More effective methods need to be developed to help people quit smoking, concludes new research.
The researchers checked the smoking cessation success of a group of people eight years after they took part in a nicotine patch trial in 1991-92.
It found more than half the people who quit smoking for a year during the nicotine patch study were still not smoking eight years later. But those successful quitters represented only 5 percent of all the people who took part in the nicotine patch trial.
The original trial included 1,625 people who smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day and 840 of them completed a follow-up questionnaire about their smoking in 1999-2000. The researchers assumed those who didn't respond to the follow-up were still smoking.
The study, in the July 5 issue of the British Medical Journal, found that of the 153 people who stopped smoking for a year in the nicotine patch trial, 83 were still not smoking. The nicotine patch increased the odds of quitting for eight years by 39 percent, but the researchers say that figure is not statistically significant.
Of the 1,472 people who did not quit smoking during the original nicotine patch trial, 89 said they had not smoked for a year or more when they filled out the follow-up questionnaire.
Overall, the follow-up study found that 11 percent of the original trial participants had not smoked for a year or more, 2 percent had quit for less than a year, and 88 percent were still smoking.
More information
Here's where you can learn more about smoking cessation.
