Article
Details
Citation
Ussher M, Best C, Lewis S, Bauld L, McKell J, Orton S, Cooper S & Coleman T (2026) Financial incentives for maintaining postpartum smoking abstinence: 3–4-year follow-up of the Financial Incentives for Prevention of Postpartum return to Smoking (FIPPS) randomized controlled trial. Addiction. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.70505
Abstract
Background and aims:
We followed up a financial incentives trial aimed at maintaining smoking cessation postpartum, which showed some positive effects at one year, to assess sustained abstinence at 3–4 years postpartum.
Design, setting and participants:
Secondary analysis of longer-term outcomes of a pragmatic, multi-centre, three-arm randomized controlled trial, recruiting 462 postpartum women in England, aged ≥16 years, having stopped smoking during pregnancy with financial incentives, validated as abstinent at end of pregnancy or early postpartum. Interventions: (i) usual care (UC); (ii) UC plus up to ?60 of voucher incentives offered to participants and ?60 offered to significant-other supporters, over 3-months postpartum, contingent upon validated abstinence (‘3-months incentives’); or (iii) UC plus ‘3-months incentives’ plus ?180 of vouchers offered to participants over 9 months postpartum (leading to a maximum of ?240 of incentives for participants, plus ?60 for significant others), contingent upon validated abstinence (‘12-months incentives’). Participants who did not achieve sustained abstinence at one year were included as non-abstainers but were not followed-up.
Measurements:
Primary outcome: biochemically validated abstinence at 3-4-years postpartum. Statistical significance was set at P<0.017 to account for multiple comparisons.
Findings:
Among the full trial sample, 63% (289/462) of participants had self-reported smoking status at 3-4 years postpartum; 19% (88/462) reported as abstinent of whom 64% (56/88) underwent biochemical validation with none misclassified. Primary outcome abstinence was 16.4% (26/159) for 12-months incentives, 12.3% (19/154) for 3-months incentives, and 7.4% (11/149) for UC. Adjusted odds ratios (OR) (95% confidence interval) for 12-months versus UC: OR 2.51 (1.18?5.31), P = 0.016, and for 3-months versus UC: 1.81 (0.83?3.98), P = 0.138. In a fully adjusted model, the difference between 12-month incentives and UC was no longer significant: OR 2.44 (1.11-5.36), P = 0.027, using the Bonferroni correction (P < 0.017). Bayes factors indicated that for 12-months versus UC there was good evidence for the alternative hypothesis and for 3-months versus UC there was inconclusive evidence for the null or alternative hypothesis.
Conclusions:
Up to ?300 of voucher incentives offered over 12 months postpartum may be effective for maintaining smoking abstinence at 3-4 years postpartum compared with usual care. Up to ?120 of incentives over 3-months postpartum does not appear to be beneficial compared with UC.
Keywords
financial incentives; intervention; maintenance; postpartum; pregnancy; randomized controlled trial; relapse prevention; smoking; smoking abstinence; vouchers
Journal
Addiction
| Status | Early Online |
|---|---|
| Funders | |
| Publication date online | 31/07/2026 |
| Date accepted by journal | 05/05/2026 |
| URL | |
| ISSN | 0965-2140 |
| eISSN | 1360-0443 |
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