Acceptability and effectiveness for withdrawal symptom relief of a novel oral nicotine delivery device: a randomised crossover trial

Lion Shahab*, Andy McEwen, Robert West

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Existing nicotine replacement therapies (NRT) improve the chances of smoking cessation but are limited by either relatively slow nicotine absorption rates or unpleasant side effects, leaving scope for the development of more effective and acceptable products.This study aimed to test the acceptability and effectiveness for withdrawal symptom relief of a novel nicotine delivery device, the 'Nicotine Cannon' (NC), compared with three existing, equivalent products: the nicotine lozenge, mini-lozenge and nicotine inhalator.A repeated-measures crossover trial where participants were randomised to one of two conditions (1- or 10-h abstinence) and in each condition to one of 24 possible sequence permutations to test each product for 10 min was carried out. Standard sociodemographic and smoking characteristics were assessed as well as withdrawal and NRT use symptoms before, during and after NRT use and product satisfaction after use.The results were similar across both durations of abstinence. The NC was significantly more effective than the inhalator in reducing withdrawal symptoms (F(3, 196)=3.5, p=0.015) and together with the mini-lozenge performed better than other NRT in alleviating urges to smoke (F(3, 563)=9.6, p
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)187-196
JournalPsychopharmacology
Volume216
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2011

Keywords

  • Nicotine replacement therapy
  • Withdrawal symptoms
  • Acceptability
  • Smoking cessation
  • Novel treatment

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