Pfeffer D, et al. - This paper probed into the smokers’ comprehensions and lay beliefs with regard to smoking and nicotine addiction. The data suggested against treating the perceptions of addiction to smoking interchangeably with perceptions of addiction to nicotine. Owing to the increasing use of e-cigarettes and their potential for long-term nicotine maintenance for harm reduction, advanced studies were warranted.

Methods

• Data was cumulated from the PubMed, Embase, CINAHL and PsycINFO for studies examining the lay beliefs about addiction to smoking.
• Twenty two quantitative and 24 qualitative studies met inclusion criteria.
• Critical interpretive synthesis inspected the results.

Results

• Very few studies enquired regarding addiction to nicotine.
• Most smokers believed that cigarettes were an addictive product, and felt that they were addicted to smoking.
• Nicotine was not frequently reported by the candidates.
• Addiction to smoking was most often characterised as a feeling of “need” for cigarettes resulting from an interplay between physical, mental and social processes.
• The smoking comprehensions appeared to be more consistent with the biopsychosocial model of addiction than with more recent models that stressed on the biological aspects of addiction.