Sustained Care Smoking Cessation Intervention for Individuals Hospitalized for Psychiatric Disorders: The Helping HAND 3 Randomized Clinical Trial

IMPORTANCE: Smoking among individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) represents a major public health problem. Intervening during a psychiatric hospital stay may provide an opportunity to aid engagement in smoking cessation treatment and facilitate success in quitting. OBJECTIVE: To examine the effectiveness of a multicomponent, sustained care (SusC) smoking cessation intervention in adults with SMI receiving inpatient psychiatric care. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: The Helping HAND 3 randomized clinical trial compared SusC with usual care (UC) among individuals with SMI who smoked daily and were receiving inpatient psychiatric care in Austin, Texas, in a single hospital. The study was conducted from July 2015 through August 2019. INTERVENTIONS: The UC intervention involved brief smoking cessation information, self-help materials and advice from the admitting nurse, and an offer to provide nicotine replacement therapy during hospitalization. The SusC intervention included 4 main components designed to facilitate patient engagement with postdischarge smoking cessation resources: (1) inpatient motivational counseling; (2) free transdermal nicotine patches on discharge; (3) an offer of free postdischarge telephone quitline, text-based, and/or web-based smoking cessation counseling, and (4) postdischarge automated interactive voice response calls or text messages. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: The primary outcome was biochemically verified 7-day point-prevalence abstinence at 6-month follow-up. A secondary outcome was self-reported smoking cessation treatment use at 1, 3, and 6 months after discharge. RESULTS: A total of 353 participants were randomized, of whom 342 were included in analyses (mean [SD] age, 35.8 [12.3] years; 268 White individuals [78.4%]; 280 non-Hispanic individuals [81.9%]; 169 women [49.4%]). They reported smoking a mean (SD) of 16.9 (10.4) cigarettes per day. Participants in the SusC group evidenced significantly higher 6-month follow-up point-prevalence abstinence rates than those in the UC group (8.9% vs 3.5%; adjusted odds ratio, 2.95 [95% CI, 1.24-6.99]; P = .01). The number needed to treat was 18.5 (95% CI, 9.6-306.4). A series of sensitivity analyses confirmed effectiveness. Finally, participants in the SusC group were significantly more likely to report using smoking cessation treatment over the 6 months postdischarge compared with participants in the UC group (74.6% vs 40.5%; relative risk, 1.8 [95% CI, 1.51-2.25]; P