Effectiveness of proactive telephone counselling for smoking cessation in parents: Study protocol of a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

BackgroundSmoking is the world's fourth most common risk factor for disease, the leading preventable cause of death, and it is associated with tremendous social costs. In the Netherlands, the smoking prevalence rate is high. A total of 27.7% of the population over age 15 years smokes. In addition to the direct advantages of smoking cessation for the smoker, parents who quit smoking may also decrease their children's risk of smoking initiation.Methods/DesignA randomized controlled trial will be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of proactive telephone counselling to increase smoking cessation rates among smoking parents. A total of 512 smoking parents will be proactively recruited through their children's primary schools and randomly assigned to either proactive telephone counselling or a control condition. Proactive telephone counselling will consist of up to seven counsellor-initiated telephone calls (based on cognitive-behavioural skill building and Motivational Interviewing), distributed over a period of three months. Three supplementary brochures will also be provided. In the control condition, parents will receive a standard brochure to aid smoking cessation. Assessments will take place at baseline, three months after start of the intervention (post-measurement), and twelve months after start of the intervention (follow-up measurement). Primary outcome measures will include sustained abstinence between post-measurement and follow-up measurement and 7-day point prevalence abstinence and 24-hours point prevalence abstinence at both post- and follow-up measurement. Several secondary outcome measures will also be included (e.g., smoking intensity, smoking policies at home). In addition, we will evaluate smoking-related cognitions (e.g., attitudes towards smoking, social norms, self-efficacy, intention to smoke) in 9-12 year old children of smoking parents.DiscussionThis study protocol describes the design of a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of proactive telephone counselling in smoking cessation. It is expected that, in the telephone counseling condition, parental smoking cessation rates will be higher and children's cognitions will be less favorable about smoking compared to the control condition.Trial registrationThe protocol for this study is registered with the Netherlands Trial Register NTR2707.

Effectiveness of proactive quitline counselling for smoking parents recruited through primary schools: results of a randomized controlled trial

“…Outcomes among children will be examined in a separate report. More detailed information regarding all aims and research questions of this trial can be found in the study protocol [21].…”

“…All participants provided written informed consent. The study is registered in the Netherlands Trial Register (NTR2707) and the full study protocol is publicly available [21]. The baseline measurement took place between January and July 2011.…”

Promoting smoking cessation among parents: Effects on smoking-related cognitions and smoking initiation in children

“…In addition, children received 10 euro (approximately 13 US dollars) for participation in the fourth assessments. Full reports of the study design, the recruitment procedure, and treatment effects among parents have been published elsewhere (Schuck, Otten, Kleinjan, Bricker, & Engels, 2011Schuck et al, 2014).…”

School-based promotion of cessation support: reach of proactive mailings and acceptability of treatment in smoking parents recruited into cessation support through primary schools

“…For the present study, only the parent data were used. More detailed information regarding the use of the child data can be found in the study protocol [32]. After the baseline assessment, parents were randomly assigned to either the telephone counselling condition (n=256) or the self-help brochure condition (n=256).…”