Detecting smoking following smoking cessation treatment

• Published in: Drug and alcohol dependence Vol. 65; no. 2; pp. 191 - 196
• Main Authors: Gariti, Peter, Alterman, Arthur I, Ehrman, Ronald, Mulvaney, Francis D, O'Brien, Charles P
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Shannon Elsevier Ireland Ltd 2002; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Adult; Biological and medical sciences; Breath Tests; Carbon monoxide; Carbon Monoxide - analysis; Cessation; Cotinine; Cotinine - urine; Female; Humans; Indicators and Reagents; Male; Medical sciences; Monitoring; Patients; Self-Assessment; Self-report; Selfreport; Smoking; Smoking - epidemiology; Smoking Cessation; Smoking Prevention; Tobacco, tobacco smoking; Toxicology; Treatment Outcome; Treatment research; Urinalysis; Urine tests; Treatment research; Carbon monoxide; Urinalysis; Cotinine; Self-report; Human; Urine; Biochemical analysis; Poison withdrawal; Treatment; Surveillance; Self evaluation; Tobacco smoking; Treatment compliance; Technique
• ISSN: 0376-8716; 1879-0046
• DOI: 10.1016/S0376-8716(01)00162-4

Our study compared the results of self-report (SR) plus breath carbon monoxide (CO) monitoring to SR plus urine cotinine (COT) analysis of recent tobacco use for a recently completed smoking cessation study that compared the efficacy of different intensities of psychosocial treatments coupled with 8 weeks of patch treatment. Treatment outcomes were assessed 9, 26, and 52 weeks from treatment initiation in 200+ patients using both measurement types. COT was able to detect self-reported smoking in over 97% of the cases at all time points, while CO detected self-reported smoking 62, 84, and 89% of the time for the three follow-up assessments. Under 2% of those reporting nonsmoking were found to be smoking via CO, whereas COT found smoking to have occurred for 23, 15, and 7% of the ‘nonsmoking’ SRs at the three time points. Abstinence rates using SR plus CO were 49, 29, and 26%, contrasted with abstinence rates of 38, 26, and 25% for SR plus COT. These findings suggest that use of urine analysis for COT may lead to more accurate but lowered measured abstinence rates.