• Beth Bock, Kristin Heron, Ernestine Jennings, Kathleen Morrow, Victoria Cobb, Joshua Magee, Joseph Fava, Christopher Deutsch, and Robert Foster.
• Alpert Medical School, Brown University, Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine, Providence, RI, United States. Bbock@lifespan.org.
• JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2013 Jan 1;1(2):e17.

BackgroundMobile technology offers the potential to deliver health-related interventions to individuals who would not otherwise present for in-person treatment. Text messaging (short message service, SMS), being the most ubiquitous form of mobile communication, is a promising method for reaching the most individuals.ObjectiveThe goal of the present study was to evaluate the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a smoking cessation intervention program delivered through text messaging.MethodsAdult participants (N=60, age range 18-52 years) took part in a single individual smoking cessation counseling session, and were then randomly assigned to receive either daily non-smoking related text messages (control condition) or the TXT-2-Quit (TXT) intervention. TXT consisted of automated smoking cessation messages tailored to individual's stage of smoking cessation, specialized messages provided on-demand based on user requests for additional support, and a peer-to-peer social support network. Generalized estimating equation analysis was used to assess the primary outcome (7-day point-prevalence abstinence) using a 2 (treatment groups)×3 (time points) repeated measures design across three time points: 8 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months.ResultsSmoking cessation results showed an overall significant group difference in 7-day point prevalence abstinence across all follow-up time points. Individuals given the TXT intervention, with higher odds of 7-day point prevalence abstinence for the TXT group compared to the Mojo group (OR=4.52, 95% CI=1.24, 16.53). However, individual comparisons at each time point did not show significant between-group differences, likely due to reduced statistical power. Intervention feasibility was greatly improved by switching from traditional face-to-face recruitment methods (4.7% yield) to an online/remote strategy (41.7% yield).ConclusionsAlthough this study was designed to develop and provide initial testing of the TXT-2-Quit system, these initial findings provide promising evidence that a text-based intervention can be successfully implemented with a diverse group of adult smokers.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01166464; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01166464 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6IOE8XdE0).

5 keywords...

hide…