Effectiveness of Behavioral Counselling with Nicotine Gum versus Behavioral Counselling among patients visiting Tobacco Cessation Clinic in Delhi: a Randomized Clinical Trial.

Tobacco related diseases have emerged as a major public health in India.Nearly 3000 chemical constituents in smokeless tobacco and about 4000 chemicals in tobacco smoke have been identified of which many are known carcinogens.According to World Health Organization the current smokers across the world are 1.3 billion and 5 million in the world die annually due to smoking.Nearly two-thirds of the world’s tobacco users live in just 10 countries and >40% live in just 2 countries,that is, China and India. India is currently the second largest consumer of tobacco products in the world.Problems related to tobacco in India are very complex because of the relationship between huge burden of tobacco related diseases, deaths, economic interests and also cultural beliefs.

Unfortunately, very few people in India quit tobacco use. Lack of awareness of harm, ingrained cultural attitudes and lack of support for cessation maintains tobacco use in the community. The significant addictive property of nicotine makes quitting difficult and relapse common. Health professionals have received little training, and very few thus carry out proper assessments and interventions among tobacco users. Evidence from the developed countries suggests that brief interventions delivered by diverse health professionals are effective in tobacco cessation. Combining pharmacological approaches with behavioral counselling produces better results than a single strategy. Given the high global morbidity and mortality from tobacco use in India ,there is a need to develop evidence-based, cost-effective interventions for both smoking and smokeless tobacco.

Hence,the present study is planned among tobacco users visiting Tobacco Clinic Clinic to check the effectiveness of tobacco cessation interventions.