CoSTED Trial

Cessation of Smoking Trial in the Emergency Department

COSTED was a research trial recruiting people attending the Emergency Department (A&E) who smoke.

The trial was jointly lead by Dr Ian Pope and Professor Caitlin Notley and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NCT04854616). The trial protocol was published in BMJ Open.

Between January and August 2022, 972 participants were successfully recruited from 6 Emergency Departments across the UK. Summary findings were:

At 6 months 23.4% of the intervention group (about 1 in 4) and 12.9% of the control group (about 1 in 8) reported having quit smoking. This shows that people were around twice as likely to report quitting smoking having received the intervention than not. 7.2% of those in the intervention group and 4.1% of those in the control group were confirmed to have quit smoking by undergoing a carbon monoxide breath test.
People who had received the intervention were also more likely to reduce the number of cigarettes they smoked and make more attempts to quit compared to those in the control group.
People attending the ED who smoke welcomed receiving advice in the ED, finding it a helpful distraction.

We have developed a toolkit for services and stop smoking professionals including FAQs for services and an eLearning platform for advisors.