Critical Appraisal of Evidence on Real-World Effectiveness of E-cigarettes for Smoking Cessation

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Critical Appraisal of Evidence
Student Name:
HLSC122 Semester 2, 2018
Assessment 3: Critical appraisal of evidence
Word count:

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Critical Appraisal of Evidence
Brown, J., Beard, E., Kotz, D., Michie, S., & West, R. (2014). Real-world
effectiveness of e-cigarettes when used to aid smoking cessation: A cross-sectional
population study. Addiction, 109(9), 1531- 1540. doi:10.1111/add.12623
Introduction:
Critical-appraisal involves a systematic way of determining the strengths and
weaknesses of the methods employed in the study (Boswell, n. d., p.412). This report
carefully scrutinizes the cross-sectional study on ‘the real-world effectiveness of e-
cigarettes that aids in smoking cessation’. Brown (2014, p.1531) has given a clear title
with an focused-abstract condensing the main points of the study. They stated an
understandable purpose that is appropriate to health-practice. It answers their study-
questions with a detailed description about scope and limitations. It gives the rationale
and potential importance in conducting the study with a clear background to this study,
PART-A
Authorship:
Authorship includes the person who has conducted the study, their job-titles, and
qualifications with designations (Boswell, n. d, p.414). The study-authors Brown, Beard,
Kotz & West are expertise in the cancer-research and health-behavior research field
while Brown and Michie are from the Clinical, educational with health-psychology
department whereas Kotz is from the Family-Medicine and Public-health & Primary-
Care department whereas Michie & West is from the Nation’s Centre for smoking-
cessation & training. This indicates that the study-authors’ qualifications and affiliations

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are related to their topic written. They have avoided all the possible biases in
measurement, sampling, response and publication aspects.
They acknowledged Jarvis, Shahab & Raupach for issuing valuable comments in
their draft. No conflicts of interest were noted. The study’s funding sources include UK-
Society’ fellowship for the Addiction-study, Cancer-Research centre UK; Pfizer (includes
Pfizer investigator-initiated award) and GlaxoSmithKline & Johnson-and-Johnson.
Research questions
Brown (2014, p.1532) has stated an achievable research-question as ‘How
electronic-cigarettes are more effective as compared to NRT (nicotine-replacement
therapy) bought over-the-counter as well as un-aided smoke-quitting among the general
smoking-population, those who aim to quit’, as suggested by Grove (2015, p.150-151).
According to Greenhalgh (2017), justifications has to be given for selecting particular
research-question, which is evidenced here by mentioning that though smokers are
licensed to use NRT to quit-smoking, the effectiveness of e-cigarettes should be
evaluated to rule-out the most effective quitting method. Moreover, the increased
popularity of e-cigarettes, presence of evidence in 2-RCTs suggesting effect of
electronic-cigarettes in smoking-cessation but with several factors affecting real-world
effectiveness and use of NRT without professional-support with lack of greater-success
in it (Kotz, 2014, p.491–9) has motivated them to propose this study.
Research design
According to Liamputtong (2016), research-design is defined as the overall-plan
that addresses the study’s question. They have selected cross-sectional house-hold