An assessment of nicotine gum as an adjunct to freedom from smoking cessation clinics

The Freedom from Smoking clinic programs offered by the American Lung Association are in widespread use. These programs were developed in the 1970s prior to the availability of nicotine gum in the United States. It was hypothesized that the addition of nicotine gum to these clinics (thereby including both behavioral and pharmacologic intervention) would boost abstinence outcome significantly. Two-hundred and seventy-three persons were randomly assigned to Freedom from Smoking clinics with or without prescription of nicotine gum. Abstinence outcomes at one week favored the nicotine gum condition (86.3% of nicotine gum subjects were abstinent as opposed to 70.9% of comparison subjects, x²(1) = 9.79, p =.002). Effects for gum were no longer significant at later follow-ups, however, Overall duration and level of nicotine gum use were considerably less than optimal. In the absence of a placebo gum control group, expectancy cannot be eliminated as a possible explanation of the short-term results.