Effectiveness of pharmacotherapy for smoking cessation: protocol for umbrella review and quality assessment of systematic reviews

BACKGROUND: In the long term, smoking cessation can decrease the risk of cancer, stroke, and heart attacks and improve overall survival. The aim of the proposed umbrella review is to summarize existing systematic reviews that assessed the effects of pharmacological interventions for smoking cessation and to evaluate the methodological quality of previously conducted systematic reviews. METHODS: Databases such as the Cochrane Library, PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHIL PsychINFO Web of Science, Conference Papers Index, Scopus, and Google Scholar will be used to retrieve reviews. Systematic reviews which included only randomized control trials will be considered in this review. The primary outcome will be prolonged abstinence from smoking for a minimum of 6 months follow-up, and the secondary outcome will be point abstinence rate from smoking of less than 6 months follow-up but more than 7 days. Methodological quality of the included reviews will be assessed using the Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews 2 (AMSTAR 2) tool, which contains 16 domains. Two authors will screen the titles and abstracts of all reviews obtained by the search strategy, assess the full text of selected articles for inclusion, and extract data independently. The quality appraisal will be also assessed by two authors (AM, CC) independently, and Cohen’s Kappa statistic will be used to assess inter-ratter agreement. The findings of the study will be narrated qualitatively to describe the effect of different pharmacotherapy on smoking cessation. DISCUSSION: The World Health Organization recommends treatment of tobacco dependence as one approach in its comprehensive tobacco control policy. To date, many trials and systematic reviews have been conducted to assess the effectiveness of pharmacotherapy for smoking cessation. Therefore, the findings of the umbrella review will improve clinical decision-making and be used as a baseline for future studies. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42017080906 ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13643-018-0878-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.