Pilot study of contingency management for smoking cessation
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Addition of contingency management to stop smoking services for in-treatment opiate addicts: a randomised controlled pilot study
IRAS ID
171709
Contact name
Tom Ainscough
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 10 months, 2 days
Research summary
In the UK, the economic cost of smoking in those with mental disorders alone was estimated as £2.34 billion in the period 2009/10. Smoking prevalence in opiate users undergoing treatment in SLaM is nearly times greater than in the general population; and drug-addicted smokers have a fourfold greater premature mortality rate than drug addicted non-smokers, making them a priority population for smoking cessation intervention development. This situation is further exacerbated by the fact that the efficacy of the standard stop smoking treatment currently used in SLaM is nearly halved when an individual has used illicit drugs in the past 30 days. There is therefore a great need for development of novel interventions for tobacco smoking that can bolster the efficacy of current interventions, particularly in those undergoing treatment for opiate use. \n\nContingency management (CM) is a behavioural intervention based on the principles of operant conditioning, whereby changes in behaviour are brought about by positively rewarding desired behaviour. CM has been shown to be an effective intervention for many addictions; research currently in progress suggests its use as an intervention for smoking in opiate users is limited, particularly so in the UK. One of the most widely used forms of CM schedule is known as escalating with reset. In this form of CM, rewards escalate in in a set increment value for each successive drug negative sample, with the value resetting to that of the initial reward if a drug positive sample is submitted. Reward values then begin to rise again in the same way as before.\n\nThe aim of the proposed pilot study is to assess whether an escalating with reset CM intervention can be successfully added to usual stop smoking services (SSS) treatment, in patients undergoing outpatient treatment for opiate use.\n\n\n\n
REC name
London - City & East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/LO/0990
Date of REC Opinion
16 Jun 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion