OET READING PART B 008

008. The paragraph is about:

A) Ineffectiveness of drugs in smoking cessation

B) Effectiveness of behavioral therapy

C) Efficacy of cessation medications in tobacco.

Smoking cessation

The US Public Health Service clinical practice guideline “Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence” recommends that smokers use pharmaceutical aid to quit smoking. However, in a study appearing in Tobacco Control in 2016, no more than 30% of US smokers who quit long term attributed their success to using 1 or more of these aids. In addition, several observational studies have suggested that the effectiveness of pharmaceutical cessation aids used in community settings is less convincing than the efficacy of these medications under more optimized conditions in randomized clinical trials (in which they are administered and used in a more standardized manner and usually are combined with behavioral counseling). Interpretation of the available observational evidence is challenging because the use of cessation medicine is not random. Instead, smokers’ choices regarding cessation methods often are correlated with characteristics that influence their success in remaining tobacco-free. The researchers at UCSD used propensity score matching, the statistical method that can overcome this limitation more completely than the ordinary multivariable methods used in previous studies of this topic.