Edinburgh Napier University

  Smoking rates remain high in Ireland despite considerable progress being made to reduce them in recent years. Ireland ranks second highest for smoking-related causes of death in the EU. Lung cancer, which is strongly linked to smoking, is now the most common cause of death for women in Ireland particularly those living in more
disadvantaged areas. Due to this, the Irish Cancer Society developed a new stop smoking programme for women in 2012 called ‘We Can Quit’ (WCQ) which was established following a review of the literature conducted by members of our research team. We also undertook a small study to look at initial outcomes from WCQ when
it was first set up. There is now a need to conduct a bigger study to research this programme. This current research proposal is for a pilot of ‘We Can Quit 2’ (WCQ2).
We propose to conduct a randomised controlled trial comparing WCQ2 with existing stop smoking services ‘usual care’ in Ireland. Four areas will offer WCQ2 and four usual care with 194 women participating. Follow up for the study will be at 12 weeks at the end of the programme and then at 6 months to look at longer-term
outcomes. The study is designed to inform future research, in particular a future larger trial.
This is a collaborative research grant led by Trinity College Dublin. It also involves researchers in the UK, the Irish Cancer Society and other organisations working to reduce smoking and improve health in Ireland. The total amount awarded is 540,744 Euros.