Text2Quit: Results From a Pilot Test of a Personalized, Interactive Mobile Health Smoking Cessation Program

Abstract

Text messaging programs on mobile phones have shown some promise in helping people quit smoking. Text2Quit is an automated, personalized, and interactive mobile health program that sends text messages and e-mails timed around a participant's quit date over the course of 3 months. The text messages include pre- and post-quit educational messages, peer ex-smoker messages, medication reminders and relapse messages, and multiple opportunities for interaction. Study participants were university students (N = ;23) enrolled in the Text2Quit program. Participants were surveyed at baseline and at 2 and 4 weeks after enrollment. The majority of participants agreed that they liked the program at 2 and 4 weeks after enrollment (90.5% and 82.3%, respectively). Support for text messages was found to be moderate and higher than that of the e-mail and web components. Of participants, 75% reported reading most or all of the texts. On average, users made 11.8 responses to the texts over a 4-week period, although responses declined after the quit date. The interactive feature for tracking cigarettes was the most used interactive feature, followed by the craving trivia game. This pilot test provides some support for the Text2Quit program. A future iteration of the program will include additional tracking features in both the pre-quit and post-quit protocols and an easier entry into the not-quit protocol. Future studies are recommended that identify the value of the interactive and personalized features that characterize this program.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by 5K07 CA124579-02 and American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) supplement to Lorien Abroms, from National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Support also came from an award from the Department of Prevention and Community Health at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services to Lorien Abroms.

Lorien Abroms thanks the staff at The George Washington University for their dedication to the study and the staff at Voxiva for technical support for Text2Quit, especially Rohiet Johri.

The George Washington University has licensed the Text2Quit program to Voxiva, Inc.

Notes

^*Number of texts/week may vary depending on the number of medications selected for use and numbers of identified triggers.

Note. A response includes a reply to a text survey or an unsolicited request for support with quitting via text (e.g., CRAVE).