Evaluating Specific Plans to Increase Smoking Quit Attempts in Prison

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    The Role of Self-Incentives in Smoking Cessation: A Randomised Controlled Trial within a Local Prison.

  • IRAS ID

    189463

  • Contact name

    Chris Armitage

  • Contact email

    chris.armitage@manchester.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    University of Manchester

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    1 years, 0 months, 10 days

  • Research summary

    Tobacco use is the greatest cause of ill health and early mortality, and smoking is the main contributor to around 75,000 deaths a year in England. The aim of the present research is to test the effect of helping people to reward themselves when they have successfully abstained from smoking and the impact this will have on subsequent smoking cessation. Each participant will be randomly allocated to one of four conditions. The trial requires 159 participants to perform an fully powered statistical analysis. The four conditions include: (1) a control condition (asked to form a plan to quit smoking), (2) an implementation intention condition (asked to form a more specific ‘if-then’ plan), (3) baseline which include: (1) a control condition (asked to form a plan to quit smoking), (2) a volitional help sheet condition (asked to link temptations with appropriate behavioural responses), (3) a weekly self-incentivising condition (asked to reward themselves at the end of each week that they have successfully abstained from smoking), or (4) a monthly self-incentivising condition (asked to reward themselves at the end of each month that they have successfully abstained from smoking). The main outcome measure will be smoking quit status, which will be verified biochemically at the end of the stop smoking programme, and at six¬-months post quit date.

  • REC name

    North West - Greater Manchester West Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    15/NW/0800

  • Date of REC Opinion

    30 Dec 2015

  • REC opinion

    Further Information Favourable Opinion