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The London Exercise And Pregnant smokers (LEAP) trial: a randomised controlled trial of physical activity for smoking cessation in pregnancy with an economic evaluation

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posted on 2016-04-08, 09:14 authored by Michael Ussher, Sarah Lewis, Paul Aveyard, Isaac Manyonda, Robert West, Beth Lewis, Bess Marcus, Muhammad Riaz, Adrian H. Taylor, Pelham Barton, Amanda DaleyAmanda Daley, Holly Essex, Dale EsligerDale Esliger, Tim Coleman
Background Smoking during pregnancy is the main preventable cause of poor birth outcomes. Improved methods are needed to help women to stop smoking during pregnancy. Pregnancy provides a compelling rationale for physical activity (PA) interventions as cessation medication is contraindicated or ineffective, and an effective PA intervention could be highly cost-effective. Objective To examine the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a PA intervention plus standard behavioural support for smoking cessation relative to behavioural support alone for achieving smoking cessation at the end of pregnancy. Design Multicentre, two-group, pragmatic randomised controlled trial and economic evaluation with follow-up at the end of pregnancy and 6 months postnatally. Randomisation was stratified by centre and a computer-generated sequence was used to allocate participants using a 1 : 1 ratio. Setting 13 hospitals offering antenatal care in the UK. Participants Women between 10 and 24 weeks’ gestation smoking five or more cigarettes a day before pregnancy and one or more during pregnancy. Interventions Participants were randomised to behavioural support for smoking cessation (control) or behavioural support plus a PA intervention consisting of supervised treadmill exercise plus PA consultations. Neither participants nor researchers were blinded to treatment allocation. Main outcome measures The primary outcome was self-reported, continuous smoking abstinence between a quit date and end of pregnancy, validated by expired carbon monoxide and/or salivary cotinine. Secondary outcomes were maternal weight, depression, birth outcomes, withdrawal symptoms and urges to smoke. The economic evaluation investigated the costs of the PA intervention compared with the control intervention. Results In total, 789 women were randomised (n = 394 PA, n = 395 control). Four were excluded post randomisation (two had been enrolled twice in sequential pregnancies and two were ineligible and randomised erroneously). The intention-to-treat analysis comprised 785 participants (n = 392 PA, n = 393 control). There was no significant difference in the rate of abstinence at the end of pregnancy between the PA group (7.7%) and the control group (6.4%) [odds ratio for PA group abstinence 1.21, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.70 to 2.10]. For the PA group compared with the control group, there was a 33% (95% CI 14% to 56%), 28% (95% CI 7% to 52%) and 36% (95% CI 12% to 65%) significantly greater increase in self-reported minutes of moderate- and vigorous-intensity PA from baseline to 1 week, 4 weeks and 6 weeks respectively. Accelerometer data showed that there was no significant difference in PA levels between the groups. There were no significant differences between the groups for change in maternal weight, depression, withdrawal symptoms or urges to smoke. Adverse events and birth outcomes were similar between the groups except for there being significantly more caesarean births in the control group than in the PA group (28.7% vs. 21.3%; p < 0.023). The PA intervention was less costly than the control intervention by £35 per participant. This was mainly attributable to increased health-care usage in the control group. However, there was considerable statistical uncertainty around this estimate. Conclusions During pregnancy, offering an intervention combining supervised exercise and PA counselling does not add to the effectiveness of behavioural support for smoking cessation. Only 10% of participants had PA levels accessed by accelerometer and it is, therefore, unclear whether or not the lack of an effect on the primary outcome is the result of insufficient increases in PA. Research is needed to identify the smoking populations most suitable for PA interventions and methods for increasing PA adherence.

Funding

This project was funded by the NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme and will be published in full in Health Technology Assessment; Vol. 19, No. 84.

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

Health Technology Assessment

Volume

19

Issue

84

Citation

USSHER, M. ...et al., 2015. The London Exercise And Pregnant smokers (LEAP) trial: a randomised controlled trial of physical activity for smoking cessation in pregnancy with an economic evaluation. Health Technology Assessment, 19(84).

Publisher

© Queen’s Printer and Controller of HMSO 2015 . This work was produced by Michael Ussher et al. under the terms of a commissioning contract issued by the Secretary of State for Health. This issue may be freely reproduced for the purposes of private research and study and extracts (or indeed, the full report) may be included in professional journals provided that suitable acknowledgement is made and the reproduction is not associated with any form of advertising. Applications for commercial reproduction should be addressed to NETSCC.

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Non-Commercial Government Licence for public sector information Full details of this licence are available at: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/non-commercial-government-licence/non-commercial-government-licence.htm

Publication date

2015-10-31

Notes

This report presents independent research commissioned by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The views and opinions expressed by authors in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the NHS, the NIHR, MRC, CCF, NETSCC, the NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme.

ISSN

1366-5278

eISSN

2046-4924

Language

  • en