Giving out free e-cigarette starter packs to smokers in hospital A&E departments helps more people quit, NIHR-funded research finds.
Academics from the University of East Anglia conducted a trial in six UK emergency departments between January and August 2022. The study’s results have been published in the Emergency Medicine Journal.
The research team hopes the initiative will be rolled out to hospitals nationwide. They say it could result in more than 22,000 extra people quitting smoking each year.
A total of 972 smokers took part, all of whom attended A&E for any reason. They were randomly assigned to receive either smoking advice, an e-cigarette starter pack and referral to local stop-smoking services – or just ‘usual care’ written information about locally available stop-smoking services.
Both groups of patients were asked if they were still smoking one, three and six months after they attended hospital. Those who reported quitting after six months were asked to undergo a carbon monoxide breath test.
Researchers found:
• Six months later, almost 1 in 4 people given the starter packs said they had quit smoking. It also showed that people were twice as likely to quit smoking having received the intervention than not
• People were twice as likely to quit smoking having received the intervention than not
• Those who received the packs but didn’t quit altogether, were more likely to have reduced the number of cigarettes they smoked
Dr Ian Pope, from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, and an emergency physician, said: “Emergency departments in England see more than 24 million people each year of whom around a quarter are current smokers.
“Attending the emergency department offers a valuable opportunity for people to be supported to quit smoking, which will improve their chances of recovery from whatever has brought them to hospital, and also prevent future illness.”