Table 4

 Estimated percentages of medication assisted quit attempts in 1999 and 2002 derived from prescription and purchase data and ONS Omnibus surveys for those years

19992002
Prescription/ purchase dataONS survey(95% CI)Prescription/ purchase dataONS survey(95% CI)
ONS survey: smokers and <12 month ex-smokers; 1999 n = 1072; 2002 n = 1022.
Estimated number of smokers is 12.5 million in both years. Estimated smoking prevalence fell by approximately 1% but there was a rise in the adult population which would be expected to offset this. Figures are integers to avoid the impression of spurious precision in estimates.
*This is different from the published figure because the latter is not limited to smokers who made a quit attempt in the year.
†This assumes minimal use of both OTC and prescription medication in the same quit attempt.
Proportion of smokers using prescription medication7%8% (6% to 10%)
Proportion of smokers using OTC medication8%9% (7% to 11%)10%9% (7% to 11%)
Proportion of smokers using medication8%9%* (7% to 11%)17%†17% (14% to 19%)
Proportion of smokers making a quit attempt32% (29% to 33%)29% (26% to 31%)
Proportion of smokers making quit attempts who used medication25%28% (23% to 32%)61%61% (56% to 67%)