Contingency Management for Smoking Cessation in the Homeless

Summary

Smoking cessation services are an unmet need among the homeless, who smoke at rates more than 3 times the national estimate; successful interventions in this underserved population have the potential for improving individual and public health. Contingency management (CM) is a behavioral intervention with efficacy in a number of substance use disorder populations, including smokers. However, no known studies have evaluated the effect of CM in homeless smokers. The investigators plan to examine smoking-related outcomes in homeless treatment-seeking smokers (N = 70) randomized to standard care smoking cessation (transdermal nicotine replacement therapy \[NRT\] + standard counseling + carbon monoxide \[CO\] monitoring) or standard care plus CM (NRT + standard counseling + CO monitoring + CM) conditions. Standard counseling and CO monitoring will occur for the first 4 weeks, with NRT use continuing through week 8. Participants in both conditions will meet with study staff up to twice daily on weekdays for biochemical verification of smoking status. Participants in the CM condition will have the opportunity to earn prizes for negative breath samples (CO ≤ 4 ppm) up to twice daily on weekdays. CO breath samples will be collected at all visits. The investigators expect that participants randomized to CM will have better outcomes compared to those in standard care.

Conditions

• Cigarette Smoking

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Contingency Management

Participants earn reinforcement in the form of prizes for breath samples that test negative for cigarette smoking.

OTHER

Standard of Care

Standard smoking cessation counseling

OTHER

Standard of Care

transdermal nicotine replacement \[21 mg patches (4 wks), 14 mg (2 wks), 7 mg (2 wks)\]

OTHER

Standard of Care

Breath sample monitoring

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

  collaborator NIH

• UConn Health

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Carla J Rash, PhD · UConn Health

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2012-10-31

Primary Completion

2016-07-31

Completion

2016-07-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations