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NICE Underpinning Review
Several treatments can help smokers make a successful quit attempt, but many of those who initially successfully quit relapse over time. Preventing relapse in people who have quit smoking is important for health benefits to be realised. Several interventions have been proposed to help prevent relapse. This review aims to identify which behavioural or pharmacotherapy interventions are most effective at preventing a relapse in those who have quit smoking recently, defined as at any point in the past.
There is no clear definition of a relapse prevention intervention distinct from extended cessation treatment. In principle, resuming smoking any time after a quit date may be defined as a relapse. Relapse prevention is often, however, intended to refer to preventing relapse after an acute treatment phase is successfully completed. Both types of relapse – at any point after a quit date, and after successful completion of a treatment phase – are included in this review.
This review was completed by the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group (TAG) in October 2019 for NICE (Livingstone-Banks et al., 2019)a . Throughout, figures and sections of text have been taken directly from the Cochrane work, or had minor amendments to wording, and are presented here in the standard NICE format.
This evidence review supports recommendations 1.17.1 to 1.17.2, 1.17.6 to 1.17.7, 1.22.1 to 1.22.2, and the research recommendations on relapse prevention and relapse prevention after enforced, temporary quit. Other evidence supporting these recommendations can be found in the evidence reviews on cessation and harm-reduction treatments (review K).