The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: Evaluate impact of OTC availability of Chewable powder containing Nicotine on Tobacco cessation.

Methods: 680 patients who used OTC product in addition to our advice were selected for this project. This includes either who took it themselves or we had advised. Their routine CRF was prepared and all details of demography, psychological status, physical and psychological co-morbidity and state of addiction were evaluated by Faggerstrom grading.They were followed up for plus 12 weeks.

Results: Chewable Gutka pouches containing defined amount of nicotine are available in India . Showed a significant increase in the fraction of smokers using chewable powder (P < 0.05) immediately following their availability as OTC. There were also a significantly higher proportion of smokers reporting abstinence with NRT and counseling (P < 0.01). The results of this study suggest that removing the prescription status of NRT products resulted in an increase in quit attempts,smoking abstinence or quitting chewable tobacco. But all these successes reached contemplation stage.Quit rate was about 28% and surprisingly it had no significant relationship with severity of addiction.