Pilot Study of Contingency Management for Smoking Cessation

Addition of Contingency Management to Stop Smoking Services for Patients Undergoing Treatment for Opiate Addiction: a Randomised Controlled Pilot Study

The purpose of this study is to see whether contingency management (CM) can be successfully added as an adjunct treatment to standard stop smoking services in outpatients undergoing treatment for opiate addiction. Forty tobacco smoking patients undergoing treatment for opiate addiction will be stratified to a CM intervention for either smoking abstinence or attendance at the clinic, whilst also receiving usual stop smoking services cessation treatment. The intervention will run for five weeks and participants will be followed up six months after the beginning of the study.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Smoking; Smoking Cessation; Tobacco Smoking; Smoking, Tobacco; Opiate Dependence; Opiate Addiction
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Contingency Management

Detailed Description

The study aims to investigate whether a contingency management (CM) intervention can be added to usual NHS stop smoking services (SSS) treatment, in patients undergoing treatment for opiate addiction.

The SSS at the treatment centre follows the standard treatment program set out by the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training (NCSCT) and the NICE guidelines for smoking cessation. Service users taking part in the SSS attend one meeting per week for six weeks. In the first meeting with a cessation worker the client completes baseline information about the client's age, gender, ethnicity, employment, motivation to quit, past quit attempts and current smoking behaviour), and sets a quit date for the following week. For the remaining four weeks clients attend the clinic to receive behavioural support. Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is available free of charge to all individuals engaged with SSS. During the six weeks of treatment, service users are given a week's supply of NRT at a time. At the end of the six weeks, service users are given a two week supply of NRT before exiting the SSS treatment. NRT use is recorded throughout SSS treatment. Clients' breath carbon monoxide (CO) levels are also measured at the initial visit and at each subsequent visit over the next 5 weeks in order to biochemically verify self-reported abstinence from smoking (CO<10ppm).

The CM intervention that this study will run as an adjunct to the SSS,. The 40 participants will be randomised into either experimental (CM for abstinence) or control (CM for attendance) conditions at intake. Randomisation will be stratified based on participants' current smoking frequency (between 10 and 20 per day, and more than 20 per day). The intervention will run for five weeks in total, with randomisation occurring at visit 1, and the intervention beginning in week two of the SSS treatment and ending in week six. Participants will be rewarded for smoking abstinence in the experimental condition, and for attending the SSS clinic in the control condition. For the experimental condition smoking abstinence will be defined as a breath CO reading of <10ppm, and for the control condition attendance will be defined as attending the SSS clinic once a week. Rewards will be administered by a researcher to ensure cessation workers are not aware of group allocation.

The intervention will employ an 'escalating with reset' schedule, Reward values will be the same in both conditions. In escalating with reset CM, rewards escalate in a set increment value for each successive verified display of the desired behaviour. When the desired behaviour is not observed, no reward is given, and the reward value for the next verified display of the desired behaviour is reset to that of the initial reward. Reward values then begin to rise again in the same way as before.

Six months after their set quit date, participants will be contacted by the PI to ascertain their self-reported smoking status. In order to test the optimal follow up method, participants will be pseudo-randomised to be contacted by text and phone call, or email and phone call. All participants will also be asked to return to the clinic in order to have their breath CO levels tested to verify this. Once this is done, participants will have completed their participation in the study.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 40
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United Kingdom
  • London, United Kingdom
    • Lorraine Hewitt Hosue

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 65 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Want to quit smoking
• Between 18 and 65 years old
• Undergoing current pharmacological treatment for opiate addiction
• Smoke a minimum of 10 cigarettes per day
• Provide informed consent.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Insufficient English skills to understand study protocols
• Currently undergoing treatment for drugs other that opiates or tobacco
• Taking part in other research

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Contingency Management: smoking; Contingency Management: smoking Participants receive rewards contingent on biochemical verification of tobacco smoking abstinence	Behavioral: Contingency Management; Contingency management is a behavioural intervention based on the principals of operant conditioning that is widely used in the addictions field. At the most basic level, contingency management works by providing rewards as reinforcement for desired behaviours. In the current study, the desired behaviours are either attendance at the clinic and abstinence from tobacco smoking, or just attendance at the clinic, dependent on the arm of the trial that participants are randomised to. Participants in the experimental condition will receive shopping vouchers for attending the clinic and providing a breath CO recording of <10ppm. Participants in the control condition will receive shopping vouchers for attending the clinic, regardless of their breath CO recording results.
Placebo Comparator: Contingency Management: attendance; Contingency Management: attendance Participants receive rewards contingent on attending the stop smoking clinic (independent of smoking status)	Behavioral: Contingency Management; Contingency management is a behavioural intervention based on the principals of operant conditioning that is widely used in the addictions field. At the most basic level, contingency management works by providing rewards as reinforcement for desired behaviours. In the current study, the desired behaviours are either attendance at the clinic and abstinence from tobacco smoking, or just attendance at the clinic, dependent on the arm of the trial that participants are randomised to. Participants in the experimental condition will receive shopping vouchers for attending the clinic and providing a breath CO recording of <10ppm. Participants in the control condition will receive shopping vouchers for attending the clinic, regardless of their breath CO recording results.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Number of participants completing treatment in each condition	Number of participants completing treatment in each condition	6 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Percentage of negative samples	Percentage of biochemically verified (exhaled air carbon monoxide) negative breath samples b) Biochemically verified (exhaled air carbon monoxide) point prevalence smoking abstinence	Each week throughout intervention (weeks 1-6) and at 6 month follow up
Longest duration of abstinence	Number of consecutively biochemically verified (exhaled air carbon monoxide) negative breath samples	Each week throughout intervention (weeks 1-6) and at 6 month follow up
Point Prevalence abstinence	Biochemically verified (exhaled air carbon monoxide) point prevalence smoking abstinence	Each week throughout intervention (weeks 1-6) and at 6 month follow up

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: King's College London
• Investigators: Study Director: Ann McNeill, PhD, King's College London

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Ainscough TS, Brose LS, Strang J, McNeill A. Contingency management for tobacco smoking during opioid addiction treatment: Implementation challenges. Drug Alcohol Rev. 2021 May;40(4):658-661. doi: 10.1111/dar.13216. Epub 2020 Nov 24.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: October 1, 2016
• Primary Completion (Actual): September 1, 2017
• Study Completion (Actual): September 1, 2017

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 28, 2016
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 6, 2017
• First Posted (Estimate): January 10, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): November 29, 2017
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 27, 2017
• Last Verified: December 1, 2016

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Smoking; Smoking Cessation; Tobacco Smoking; Contingency Management; Opiate Dependence; Opiate Addiction; Smoking, Tobacco
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Chemically-Induced Disorders; Substance-Related Disorders; Narcotic-Related Disorders; Compulsive Behavior; Impulsive Behavior; Opioid-Related Disorders; Behavior, Addictive
• Other Study ID Numbers: 171709

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO
• IPD Plan Description: Permission is not being sought for this from participants to expedite recruitment