Development of Procedures for Early Screening of Smoking Cessation Medications in Humans

Abstract

Candidate medications for smoking cessation may be screened more efficiently if initial evaluations in humans combine the practical advantages of laboratory studies with the clinical validity of clinical trials, such as by increasing participants' "quit motivation" during brief testing. We manipulated "intrinsic" quit motivation by recruiting smokers who either did intend to quit soon ("treatment seekers," N = 47) or did not ("nonseekers," N = 93), and "extrinsic" quit motivation by providing or not providing reinforcement for abstinence ($12/day). All the subjects smoked as they would usually do during weeks 1 and 3, and tried to quit during weeks 2 and 4 using either a nicotine patch (21 mg) or a placebo patch, in accordance with the crossover design of the study. The nicotine patch increased abstinence in treatment seekers but not in nonseekers. Reinforcement had a main effect on abstinence but did not moderate the effects of the nicotine patch or treatment-seeking status. Intrinsic, but not extrinsic, quit motivation of participants may enhance the validity of brief tests of medication efficacy for smoking cessation.

Optimal Carbon Monoxide Criteria to Confirm 24-hr Smoking Abstinence

“…These studies were approved by the University of Pittsburgh Institutional Review Board, and all participants provided written informed consent for participation after the nature and the consequences of the relevant study were explained. Other details of the study procedures are described in Perkins et al (2008Perkins et al ( , 2010.…”

“…Procedures for assessing and validating high and low quit interest at screening are described elsewhere (Perkins et al, 2008(Perkins et al, , 2010.…”

Severity of tobacco abstinence symptoms varies by time of day

“…(See Perkins, Lerman, Stitzer, et al, 2008 , for results of analyses aimed at that issue.) Our focus in this analysis was the infl uence of time of day of assessment on symptom levels during weeklong periods while smoking, while abstinent, and while using nicotine versus placebo patch when abstinent (i.e., relief by NRT).…”

Effects of Smoking Abstinence on Cigarette Craving, Nicotine Withdrawal, and Nicotine Reinforcement in Smokers With and Without Schizophrenia

“…This measure was sensitive to nicotine administration in a previous study (Perkins et al, 2008). Cigarettes were rated using the Hedonic Rating Scale (Shiffman et al, 2006), which consists of two items, "Was smoking pleasant?"…”