Smoking, stress and relapse prevention in smoking cessation programmes

At present, smoking cessation programmes achieve more successful abstinence rates at the end of the treatment but, nevertheles, the follow-up studies show a remarkable decrease of these rates. Therefore, this study ia a literature review from the viewpoint of stress and coping of the situational, psychological and physiological factors which predict abstinence maintenance. Furthermore, the strategies more used in relapse prevention programmes are described.