Exercise to enhance smoking cessation outcomes

A comprehensive exercise programme involving individual consultation and exercise prescription, face-to-face and telephone support, provision of strategies (goal setting, scheduling and planning of exercise, mood management) to maintain exercise will be provided over six months by trained exercise facilitators. A total of ten sessions will be provided over the six months and will include one face-to-face meeting at the beginning and then weekly telephone calls for the first month, fortnightly for the next month, and then monthly for the duration of the study. The face-to-face meeting will be approximately 60 minutes in duration with the phone calls between 10-20 minutes long. The exercise package will be delivered in addition to usual smoking cessation services delivered through Quitline. Quitline (Me Mutu) is a national smoking cessation service provided by the Quit Group that offers telephone delivered behavioural support (three sessions) and an eight-week supply of Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) at a heavily subsidized rate for smokers. Current standard cessation practice at the New Zealand Quitline (as at April 2008) is as follows: Quitline issues by post, two (or sometimes three) four-week Quit Cards (with a 90 day expiry) and makes routine support calls by telephone over eight weeks. These support calls are administered by Quitline advisors as required. Quitting support generally involves an average of three follow-up telephone calls, each lasting about 10-15 minutes. However, if people don’t want to receive support calls, they are not scheduled but callers are advised that they can phone Quitline at any time for support. Participants take each four-week Quit Card to a pharmacist in exchange for subsidised patches, gum and/or lozenges ($5 per item per four-week course of NRT). The strength of NRT patch, gum, and/or lozenges to be used by each participant is determined by the Quitline advisor (as per their dosage guidelines) as to the degree of each person’s nicotine dependency. The exercise intervention will commence within one-week of participants commencing usual stop smoking treatment through Quitline, and will be provided weekly for the first six-weeks and will gradually reduce in frequency to monthly for the remainder of the programme.