Summary of findings 2. Cost‐free medications used in addition to standard care in primary care.
| Cost‐free medications used in addition to standard care in primary care | ||||||
| Patient or population: people who attend primary care and smoke tobacco Setting: primary care (Australia, Europe, Pakistan, United States) Intervention: cost‐free medications plus standard or multicomponent smoking cessation support Comparison: standard or multicomponent smoking cessation support | ||||||
| Outcomes | Anticipated absolute effects* (95% CI) | Relative effect (95% CI) | № of participants (studies) | Certainty of the evidence (GRADE) | Comments | |
| Risk with placebo | Risk with cost‐free medications | |||||
| Smoking abstinence at 6‐month follow‐up or more | Study population | RR 1.36 (1.05 to 1.76) | 7560 (10 RCTs) | ⊕⊕⊕⊝ MODERATEa,b | ‐ | |
| 12 per 100 | 17 per 100 (13 to 22) | |||||
| *The risk in the intervention group (and its 95% confidence interval) is based on the assumed risk in the comparison group and the relative effect of the intervention (and its 95% CI). CI: Confidence interval; RCT: Randomized controlled trial; RR: Risk ratio | ||||||
| GRADE Working Group grades of evidence High certainty: We are very confident that the true effect lies close to that of the estimate of the effect Moderate certainty: We are moderately confident in the effect estimate: The true effect is likely to be close to the estimate of the effect, but there is a possibility that it is substantially different Low certainty: Our confidence in the effect estimate is limited: The true effect may be substantially different from the estimate of the effect Very low certainty: We have very little confidence in the effect estimate: The true effect is likely to be substantially different from the estimate of effect | ||||||
aDowngraded one level due to inconsistency. I2 = 63%. bThe funnel plot highlighted one outlier (the smallest study showed a large positive effect of the intervention). However, when this outlier was removed from the analysis the interpretation of the result remained consistent.