Long-term Effectiveness of Mailed Nicotine Replacement Therapy: A 5-year Follow-up

Our group recently completed a randomized controlled trial evaluating the efficacy of providing 5 weeks of free NRT (in the form of the nicotine patch) by expedited postal mail without behavioural assistance to regular adult smokers recruited across Canada interested in receiving it (clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT01429129). The findings revealed that the provision of free nicotine patches via mail resulted in more than a doubling of 30-day abstinence quit rates at a six-month follow-up compared to the no intervention control group (7.6% versus 3.0%; odds ratio of 2.65). While this trial provided evidence for the effectiveness of nicotine patches as a tobacco cessation aid in real world settings, the findings speak only to the short-term effectiveness of NRT. As evidence for NRT effectiveness has been largely restricted to a final follow-up of 6-12 months after the start of treatment, and relapse to smoking is known to occur beyond this period, it is important to evaluate whether the net benefit of NRT in naturalistic settings can be maintained long-term.

Employing a survey research call centre, trained interviewers will contact participants in the original randomized controlled trial, 5 years post-enrollment. A total of 924 subjects will be eligible to be contacted, however intent-to-treat analyses will evaluate outcomes based on all 1000 participants randomized to condition in the original trial. In this 5-year follow-up survey, interviewers will first assess participants' smoking status, the number of cigarettes smoked per day and their level of nicotine dependence. Participants reporting not currently smoking will be asked whether they have smoked tobacco, even a puff, in the last 30 days (primary outcome measure: abstinence using 30 day point prevalence), past 6 months (secondary outcome measure: prolonged 6-month abstinence), and since the last follow-up survey (secondary outcome measure: > 4 year continuous abstinence). Interviewers will be blind to experimental condition at the time the primary outcome measure will be assessed. The survey component of the proposed study will be conducted over a 2 year period to coincide with the duration of subject recruitment in the original trial. The primary hypothesis is that subjects who received nicotine patches at baseline will display significantly higher quit rates at the 5-year follow-up as compared to subjects who did not receive nicotine patches at baseline.