While the patch + lozenge combination was notably efficacious relative to placebo, the other pharmacotherapies were also significantly effective if tested with unadjusted p-values (see Table 3). These pharmacotherapies, with odds ratios ranging from 1.63 to 1.83, would have been found to be efficacious relative to placebo had they been tested in a typical randomized clinical trial involving only a single active treatment and a placebo control. Thus, the current results suggest that there was a relatively strong effect of the patch + lozenge versus placebo, rather than unusually weak effects of the other interventions. This pattern of findings should be evaluated in light of the relatively high abstinence rates that occurred in the placebo condition. At 6-months post-quit, participants in the placebo group achieved a 22.2% abstinence rate. This abstinence rate is larger than many 6-month abstinence rates in active treatment conditions in other studies (e.g., 7, 11). The success of placebo may have been due to the intensive counseling participants received (six sessions, totaling more than 60 minutes of counseling) 26, or due to the high level of motivation required to participate in a 3-year longitudinal trial.
