Table 3 Beliefs, knowledge and understanding of relapse prevention

Prevention of lapses

"Relapse prevention is making sure that, to try and stop people lapsing back to smoking, that's what I understand relapse prevention would mean".

"It is some action, some clinical action that the practitioner takes in order to prevent the patient from in the first place lapsing that automatically implies that it would help prevent relapse". 12

"Relapse prevention to me is, we have an open clinic, we see them initially for at least seven weeks, but it doesn't finish at either at six or seven weeks, they can come for as long as they like". 13

Treatment of lapses

"Well it's for people who have tried to stop smoking and have lapsed, and they don't want to go back through the whole system again, they just need something to get them back on track again," 10

"I've always felt that it's enabling clients to remain quit in the long term.......so that at the point where they've had one lapse, they actually get support to prevent them from turning into one great big relapse". 2.