Professor Peter Hajek Professor of Clinical Psychology, Head of Psychology & Director, Tobacco Dependence Research Unit, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry
Abstract
Current state-of-the-art treatments follow the withdrawal-oriented approach in combining stop-smoking medications with behavioural and motivational support delivered over a series of weekly sessions, with emphasis on helping smokers maintain complete abstinence from smoking over the critical period of acute tobacco withdrawal.
This broad context allows extensive permutations of various treatment elements such as spacing and duration of sessions, formats of individual and group support, sessions’ content, individualisation of treatment, and variations in the use of stop-smoking medications. Individual ‘tweaks’ within such a complex multimodal treatment system are difficult to evaluate and clinicians tend to rely on clinical experience, their training, and continuing professional development courses.
This presentation will focus on new data on several elements of optimising pharmacotherapy for smokers, including combining varenicline and NRT, pre-loading with NRT, and pre-loading with varenicline. It will also consider using early client reactions to tailor medication dosing and medication switches.
Source of funding: N/A
Declaration of interest: PH received research grants and provided consultancy to manufacturers of stop-smoking medications.
