E-Cigarettes: Can They Help You Quit Smoking on Their Own?

E-cigarettes have become a popular tool for people looking to give up their smoking habit, but are they really the best way to help smokers overcome addiction? A study published today in The New England Journal of Medicine aimed to answer this question by seeing how effective different interventions are in promoting cessation of smoking.  

Using 6,006 subjects, researchers randomly assigned them to one of five groups. The usual care group received both motivational texts and information about the benefits associated with quitting cigarette use. Each of the other four groups received usual care in addition to one of the following: free cessation aids (nicotine replacement therapy with e-cigarettes if therapy failed), free e-cigarettes, free cessation aids with a $600 reward for continued cessation of smoking, or free cessation aids with $600 in redeemable funds (money removed if sequential cessation markers were not hit). The primary outcome was defined to be maintained cessation of smoking 6 months after the date of initial termination. 

Rates of sustained abstinence from smoking after 6 months were found to be 0.1% in the usual care group, 0.5% in the free cessation aids group, 1.0% in the free e-cigarettes group, 2.0% in the free cessation plus rewards group, and 2.9% in the redeemable fund group. Regarding rates of sustained abstinence, redeemable deposits (P<0.001) were found to be more effective than free cessation aids (P=0.006), and free e-cigarettes (P=0.008). Free cigarettes were not found to be more effective than usual care (P=0.20), or free cessation aids (P=0.43).  

Overall, these results showed that the addition of financial incentive to free cessation aids gave rise to higher sustained cessation rates, and that addition of free cessation aids or e-cigarettes to usual care did not provide a significant benefit. This calls into question the efficacy of e-cigarettes as a means of quitting smoking, and perhaps indicates a need for more reward-based intervention in the cessation of smoking.  

Source: NEJM