How confident should we be that smoking cessation treatments work?
OBJECTIVE
To determine (i) the concordance among recent meta-analyses about which treatments for smoking cessation are efficacious; (ii) the similarity of odds ratios (ORs) across meta-analyses; and (iii) among the validated treatments, the proportion of studies that found higher quit rates.


METHODS
Computerized literature search for meta-analyses during the last 5 years in PubMed and PsychInfo. Data were extracted from summary tables of overall effect of validated treatments.


RESULTS
Fourteen meta-analyses agreed 100% on the presence/absence of efficacy of 17 proven treatments. The ORs differed by <0.5 in 72/76 of the comparisons of meta-analyses. Among 37 comparisons in 33 comparisons, >85% of the studies reported numerical superiority for the active treatment.


CONCLUSIONS
The efficacy of treatments for smoking cessation are extremely reliable. This argues for inclusion of treatment as an essential feature of tobacco control and clinical practice and argues for reimbursement of smoking cessation treatments on a par with other medical and behavioral disorders.
Hughes
John R
JR
Departments of Psychiatry, Psychology and Family Practice, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05401, USA. john.hughes@uvm.edu
D001294:Attitude to Health; D016206:Databases, Bibliographic; D006801:Humans; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D016017:Odds Ratio; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000379:methods*; D000074606:Smoking Prevention; D016896:Treatment Outcome
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