AIMS To estimate the prevalence and predictors of failed biochemical verification of self-reported abstinence among participants enrolled in trials of hospital-initiated smoking cessation interventions. DESIGN Comparison of characteristics between participants who verified and those who failed to verify self-reported abstinence. SETTINGS Multi-site randomized clinical trials conducted betwe...

AIMS Active recruitment of smokers increases the reach of quitlines; however, some quitlines restrict proactive telephone counselling (i.e. counsellor-initiated calls) to smokers ready to quit within 30 days. Identifying characteristics associated with successful quitting by actively recruited smokers could help to distinguish those most likely to benefit from proactive telephone counselling. T...

BACKGROUND Tobacco dependence is a chronic, relapsing condition that may require extended treatment. OBJECTIVE To assess whether extended-duration transdermal nicotine therapy increases abstinence from tobacco more than standard-duration therapy in adult smokers. DESIGN Parallel randomized, placebo-controlled trial from September 2004 to February 2008. Participants and all research personne...

OBJECTIVES To compare pharmacologic treatment strategies for neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) with respect to total duration of opioid treatment and length of inpatient hospital stay. METHODS We conducted a cohort analysis of late preterm and term neonates who received inpatient pharmacologic treatment of NAS at one of 20 hospitals throughout 6 Ohio regions from January 2012 through July 20...

AIM To study the neurobehavioural development and somatic growth of children at preschool-age born to opioid-addicted mothers given opiate maintenance treatment (OMT) with buprenorphine during pregnancy. METHODS Twenty-eight children, whose 21 opiate-addicted mothers were treated with OMT during pregnancy and accepted participation to the study, went through a battery of neurobehavioural test...

OBJECTIVE We examined how quantity and trajectory of smoking reduction influence later abstinence in smokers without intention to quit and being prescribed free nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). METHOD We conducted an a posteriori analysis from a data archive of adult smokers in a randomized controlled trial of smoking reduction using counseling and free NRT (n = 928). Reduction was analyze...

BACKGROUND The present study assessed psychomotor function in chronic, daily cannabis smokers during 3 weeks continuously monitored abstinence on a secure research unit. We hypothesized that psychomotor performance would improve during abstinence of chronic, daily cannabis smokers. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Performance on the critical tracking (CTT) and divided attention (DAT) tasks was ...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the effectiveness of varenicline for smoking cessation in Chinese smokers in a real world cessation clinic practice. DESIGN A prospective observational study. SETTING Beijing, China. PARTICIPANTS A total of 924 smokers (883 men and 41 women) who attended a smoking cessation clinic of a large general hospital were assessed with data from structured questionnaires at ...

AIMS To assess the efficacy of the Therapeutic Workplace, a substance abuse intervention that promotes abstinence while simultaneously addressing the issues of poverty and lack of job skills, in promoting abstinence from alcohol among homeless alcoholics. METHODS Participants (n = 124) were randomly assigned to conditions either requiring abstinence from alcohol to engage in paid job skills t...

Understanding and preventing relapse to drug use is one of the most difficult challenges faced by clinicians and practitioners in the struggle to help people remain abstinent. In this paper, we review basic preclinical research on forced abstinence periods that identify the neural substrates involved and neural adaptations that occur after a drug-free period. Our attention focuses on forced abs...