Varenicline Vs Varenicline & Inhalator for Smoking Cessation
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Varenicline Vs Varenicline & Behavioural Inhalator for Smoking Cessation
IRAS ID
180745
Contact name
Lucy Land
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Walsall Healthcare Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 5 months, 1 days
Research summary
Smoking is the number one preventable cause of premature death and illness in the UK (ASH, 2013) and continues to be a major issue not only on people’s health, but a huge financial burden on the NHS costing an estimated 2.7 billion annually (ASH, 2008). Statistics show that although prevalence is at an all-time low (ASH, 2014) and the number of people smoking has been declining most years (ONS, 2013), the amount of people continuing to smoke is still worryingly high and prevalence over the last 5 years is seemingly unchanged. Since NHS Stop Smoking Services were set up in 2000/2001 more people each year have set quit dates nationally, however for the first time in 2012/13 and 2013/14 the number of people setting a quit date has fallen (HSCIC, 2014). This may be because there are less smokers or it may be because the smokers who are left have tried all available treatment options and have had little/no success. Therefore the research being suggested is to offer a new treatment package whereby patients use Varenicline, a NICE recommended tablet medication for smoking cessation in combination with a behavioral element, the inhalator (non-nicotine). The quit results from this group will be compared to a group using Varenicline alone for quitting. The hope is that by giving the patients a behavioural element alongside the drug, they will find their quit attempt more comfortable by keeping their hands busy with the hand-to-mouth device therefore resulting in higher quit rates.
REC name
West Midlands - Solihull Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/WM/0403
Date of REC Opinion
8 Dec 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion