Smoking Cessation in Cancer Treatment

Norwegian Institute of Public Health

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Motivation; Smoking Cessation

Treatments: Behavioral: Structured smoking cessation counselling based on motivational interviewing (MI) and adapted for the cancer setting eventually combined with provision of smoking cessation medication

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03328962

NorwegianIPH-001

Details and patient eligibility

About

The intervention to be studied is a smoking cessation program offered to newly diagnosed cancer patients at their first consultation for treatment at an oncological hospital department.

Full description

The theoretical basis for the smoking cessation program is motivational interviewing (MI), an established counselling method previously used in smoking cessation programs as well as in other behaviour change programs. MI is defined as "a directive, client-centred counseling style for eliciting behaviour change by helping clients to explore and resolve ambivalence" (Miller 1983, cited in a Cochrane report by Lindson-Hawley, N et al., 2015). The 2015 Cochrane review concluded that MI may help people to quit smoking, but underlined at the same time that there were huge variations in study quality and intervention implementations. To our knowledge, a MI-based smoking cessation program has to a very limited extent been tried in a hospital setting before.

The program includes a cessation kit with a few samples of different smoking cessation drugs (nicotine replacement therapy) and consists of at least four individual counselling sessions (30-60 min) and follow up as needed during six months with a trained smoking cessation counsellor. Counselling will take place at the hospital premises, in conjunction with scheduled cancer treatment sessions for the patients.

In the current study, two nurses or radiation therapists at each of the included hospitals will receive training in using MI in smoking cessation counselling. The Norwegian Directorate of Health's standard smoking cessation program based on MI will be modified to be appropriate for cancer patients in treatment. The Norwegian Cancer Society (NCS) will be responsible for the training and the adaptation of the program. NCS will cover on average a 50 percent position designated smoking cessation counselling at each cancer ward. Counselling (one to one counselling) will take place in connection with cancer treatment appointments, before or after (preferably before as patients might feel unwell or nauseas after treatment), except for the first appointment that will happen before cancer treatment starts. Each counselling session will last for approximately 30-60 minutes.

Enrollment: 1,200 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Newly diagnosed cancer patients
• Offered radiation, chemo or immuno therapy in a designated hospitals
• Current smokers or recent quitters (within the last six weeks)
• 18 years or older

Exclusion criteria

• Survival prognosis less than 12 months
• Suffering dementia or other mental illnesses

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Sequential Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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1,200 participants in 2 patient groups

Control group

No Intervention group

Description:

Newly diagnosed cancer patients at their first consultation for treatment at an oncological hospital Department, who report to be smoking, recruited from 15/09/17 to 15/3/18. Their smoking status will be observed over a period of six months.

Intervention group

Experimental group

Description:

Newly diagnosed cancer patients at their first consultation for treatment at an oncological hospital Department, who report to be smoking, recruited from 15/09/18 to 15/3/19. The intervention group will receive structured smoking cessation counselling based on MI and adapted for the cancer setting combined with provision of smoking cessation medication (nicotine replacement therapy) while in the control group there will be standard care which may vary from hospital to hospital. Their smoking status will be observed over a period of six months.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Structured smoking cessation counselling based on motivational interviewing (MI) and adapted for the cancer setting eventually combined with provision of smoking cessation medication