Beyond intention-to-treat: The effect of brief counseling for tobacco cessation in secondary analyses of a cluster randomized controlled trial in Swedish dental clinics

Abstract

= 1.81, 95% CI [1.06, 3.07], but no significant effect for other outcomes. In the as-treated analysis, receiving more counseling components compared with no tobacco counseling increased the likelihood of half-reduction. The instrumental variable yielded biased results. We conclude that despite application problems, conducting per-protocol, as-treated and instrumental variable analyses in randomized trials where experimental conditions are not strictly standardized strengthens and puts in context the inference based on intention-to-treat analysis.