EFFECTIVENESS OF NICOTINE REPLACEMENT THERAPY AND BEHAVIOURAL INTERVENTION IN TOBACCO CESSATION - A TERTIARY HOSPITAL BASED RANDOMISED CONTROLLED TRIAL

Tobacco use is a leading cause of preventabledeaths all over the world and worldwidethere are nearly1.2 billion users of nicotine and tobacco products causing morethan 5million deaths per year. Across studies, it has been found that themorbidity and mortality associated with tobacco use are substantially reducedby its complete cessation. The rationale of nicotine replacing therapy for nicotinedependence treatment is based on theory of harm reduction by making it easier toreplace the nicotine obtained from tobacco thereby providing nicotine mediatedneuropharmacological effect. As per Global AdultTobacco Survey India (GATS 2, 2016-17) 42.4% of men, 14.2% ofwomen and 28.6% (266.8 million) of all adults use tobacco (smoked and/orsmokeless tobacco), while in Odisha 45.6% of adults ( >15 years) are tobaccousers from which  2.8% are smoked, 38.6%are smokeless and 4.3% are both smoked and smokeless tobacco users. Despite of such prevalence of tobacco use inIndia, very few studies have been done for tobacco cessation using Nicotinereplacement therapy as an intervention and not a single such study has yet beendone in Odisha.