Overcoming Nicotine Dependence to Enable Quitting

Tobacco use disorder is a chronic, relapsing health condition that necessitates a chronic care approach. However, traditional smoking cessation treatment programs allocate nearly all their resources only to those smokers who are willing to set a quit date. This is problematic because few smokers are ready to set a quit date at any given time, and a smoker's stated intention to quit can change rapidly. One novel potential treatment strategy is to foster practice quitting (PQ), defined as attempting to not smoke for a few hours or days, without pressure or expectation to permanently quit. Although a growing body of evidence supports the role of practice quitting in fostering permanent quit attempts and cessation, there is a significant knowledge gap regarding which treatment strategies should be used to engage smokers in practice quitting. The proposed study will test the role of PQ counseling vs. Motivational Interviewing (MI) counseling, and NRT sampling (four-week supply of nicotine lozenges and patches) vs. none.

NCT Number	NCT05513872
Lead Sponsor	Rush University Medical Center Collaborators: Medical University of South Carolina
Conditions	Tobacco Use, Smoking Cessation, Smoking Behaviors, Nicotine Dependence, Nicotine Withdrawal
Enrollment	780 participants
Start Date	2023-03-24
Primary Completion	2027-08-30 (estimated)
Study Completion	2027-08-30 (estimated)
Updated on ClinicalTrials.gov	2025-08-17