PERSonalised Incentives for Supporting Tobacco cessation (PERSIST) among healthcare employees: a randomised controlled trial protocol 341 10 Methods The protocol follows the SPIRIT guidelines for protocol papers.15 Study setting The trial will be implemented at Dutch health care institutions. The trial is primarily implemented at the Erasmus University Medical Center (Erasmus MC) and is further extended to Franciscus Gasthuis & Vlietland and Ikazia hospital. Inclusion of other health care institutions in the greater Rotterdam area is ongoing. Trial population and eligibility criteria Employees are eligible if they are: (1) aged 18 years or over, (2) employed at one of the participating health care institutions, and (3) a daily smoker (i.e. smoking at least one cigarette per day). Exclusion criteria are: (1) only using e-cigarettes and (2) not being able to physically attend the group-based training sessions. Participants are recruited through their employer. Information about the training and the PERSIST trial is spread through intranet, email, flyers and screensavers. In collaboration with the organisation responsible for the training (SineFuma, see Interventions) information sessions about the training and trial are organised. Interventions Eligible participants are individually randomised 1:1 into a control arm, receiving no incentives, and an intervention arm, receiving personalised incentives. See Figure 1 for a flowchart. Both arms participate in a group-based smoking cessation training provided by SineFuma, a company specialised in supporting smoking cessation (www.rookvrijookjij.nl). Groups consist of eight to 16 participants and the training consists of seven sessions of approximately ninety minutes duration held over a period of eight weeks. Participants in the intervention and control arms participate in the same training sessions for logistical reasons. Groupbased training sessions will start as soon as at least eight people have signed up to avoid participants lose motivation due to long waiting times. Group sessions are provided at locations within each of the participating health care institutions. The aim of the training is to quit smoking as a group: participants jointly quit smoking in the third session. The follow-on sessions then focus on supporting sustained cessation through the first few weeks following the quit attempt. The participants and coach discuss various types of nicotine replacement therapy
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