TORONTO – Bribes went a long way when your parents used them on you to do chores, abide by a curfew and play nice with your siblings. But would gift cards and free cash convince you to give up smoking?
A new Scottish study had pregnant women trade in their cigarettes for gift cards to the mall. Turns out, the retail therapy worked better at helping expectant moms with butting out than the patch and counselling.
“Existing interventions are not highly effective. This study provides substantial evidence of a promising and potentially cost effective new intervention to add to present health service support,” the study authors say in their conclusion.
READ MORE: How health officials helped 120,000 people quit smoking
University of Glasgow researchers recruited 612 pregnant U.K. women who also smoke. They were over 16 years old and less than 24 weeks pregnant.
Half of the group was offered about $1,000 in shopping vouchers if they stuck to the step that helped them quit smoking. The other half had free nicotine replacement therapy, support calls and access to an advisor for 10 weeks.
By the end of the study, 69 women who received the gift cards quit smoking for good, while only 26 from the group that received therapy gave up smoking.
Urine and saliva tests were used to make sure the women were sticking to a cigarette-free lifestyle.
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After 12 months, 15 per cent of the women who had financial incentives as a reward remained off cigarettes while only four per cent of their counterparts stuck to butting out.
Cash incentives have also been used in encouraging exercise. A 2013 Canadian study had its study participants winning weekly $5 and $10 coupons to Tim Hortons or Starbucks if they stuck to working out at the gym.
“We were trying to figure out whether financial health incentives, like paying people to do exercise, lose weight, quit smoking, actually has a positive impact on those behaviours,” Marc Mitchell, a Ph.D student at the University of Toronto, said.
READ MORE: Would a $5 reward a week make you exercise regularly? Researchers test theory
Some people need that reward to push them to exercise, Mitchell said. And with good reason: the bad things about exercise are immediate – it’s uncomfortable, it takes time out of your day, and you could be spending more time with family or friends.
The good things – health, being fit, more energy – are all delayed effects. It’s no wonder people are put off by the gym.
“It’s really, really hard to exercise regularly. So the idea with the incentives is can we somehow introduce an immediate benefit even if it’s just $1 or $2 a day to get people to exercise regularly,” Mitchell said.
The Scottish study’s full findings were published in the BMJ. Read the study here.
carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
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