Incentive-based Smoking Cessation During Pregnancy
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Smoking Cessation in Pregnancy: Do Incentives Increase the Number of Women Being Abstinent at 4 Weeks Post Quit-date?
IRAS ID
75076
Contact name
Jorg Huber
Contact email
Research summary
Smoking is a habit which arises through and is sustained by social and addictive processes; about one-in-five adults in England smoke. Smoking is understood as one of the primary causes of preventable morbidity and premature death in the UK and the annual cost of tobacco use to society is estimated at £13.74 billion (Department of Health, 2010). Reducing rates of smoking remains a societal and healthcare priority, as it has been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
In 2011/12, rates of smoking among pregnant women at time of delivery were higher in Northamptonshire (16.0%) in comparison to English average (14.9%) (see www.phoutcomes.info). There has been much attention surrounding different forms of interventions to reduce rates of smoking among pregnant women, and Lumley et al.’s (2009) Cochrane review clearly identifies incentivised schemes as achieving the most positive results in terms of short-term abstinence.
The incentivised smoking cessation intervention in Northamptonshire aims to recruit 50 pregnant women who smoke to evaluate the incentive programme in terms of its:
a) take up of stop smoking services;
b) numbers of those setting a quit date;
c) effectiveness to reduce smoking following referral to stop smoking services (i.e. 4 weeks after quit date);
d) effectiveness to reduce smoking at delivery.
As far as the applicants are aware, no systematic data on incentive programmes aiming at smoking cessation is available for England; a high quality study taking a different approach is under way in Scotland. This initial study will evaluate the feasibility of procedures and provide the basis for determining the sample size for a larger random controlled trial.REC name
East Midlands - Leicester South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/EM/0379
Date of REC Opinion
17 Dec 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion