A novel text message-based motivational interviewing intervention for college students who smoke cigarettes

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Tobacco use disorder is critical among people aged 16 to 25 years. College campuses are prime locations for smoking cessation interventions for young adults. The vast majority of the smoking research with college students has been epidemiological in nature. This study examined a novel motivational interviewing intervention designed for college students, and explored predictors of smoking behavior change. METHODS A quasi-experimental one group pretest-posttest design with repeated measures was used to evaluate a novel text message-based brief motivational interviewing intervention. The data were collected from undergraduate students (N=33) who smoked cigarettes in Fall 2015. RESULTS Students' level of autonomy and relatedness needs satisfaction, autonomous motivation, and smoking cessation self-efficacy increased (p < 0.05), and their rate of daily smoking declined (p <0 .05) over time. However, competence need satisfaction, readiness to quit smoking and severity of nicotine addiction remained unchanged. Smoking cessation self-efficacy was the strongest predictor of smoking behavior change in college students. CONCLUSIONS This study adds to the knowledge on smoking behavior among college students. Preliminary evidence indicates that text message-based motivational interviewing and smoking cessation self-efficacy may help guide successful smoking behavior interventions for college students.

The effectiveness of tobacco cessation programs for university students: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Participants were 8186 students, with subjects per intervention ranging from 29 to 2127 and ages ranging from 16 to 25 years (Table 1). There were eleven randomized controlled trials (RCT) [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] and seven non-RCT [24][25][26][27][28][29][30] . All studies reported changes in quitting tobacco use of quit durations ranging from 21 days to 6 months.…”

“…All studies reported changes in quitting tobacco use of quit durations ranging from 21 days to 6 months. Intervention types were grouped into two categories: technology-based interventions, which consisted of nine studies [14][15][16][17][18][19]21,27,28 and the face-to-face approach, which consisted of nine studies also 13,20,[22][23][24][25][26]29,30 . Specifically, thirteen studies implemented a single intervention 14,15,[17][18][19][20]22,[24][25][26][27][28]30 whereas five studies combined multiple interventions to enhance the effectiveness of tobacco cessation programs 13,16,21,23,29 .…”

“…Half of the included studies (9 out of 18 studies) selected technology-based smoking cessation interventions, comprising four mobile text messaging 16,18,19,28 , a web platform 27 , an automated web-phone intervention 21 , a smartphone application for smoking cessation 15 , a peer-based social, mobile game intervention 17 , and a computerized motivational feedback program 14 . The details of each technologybased smoking cessation intervention are described below.…”

Effectiveness of a web platform on university students’ motivation to quit smoking

“…Currently, it is little probable that the young adults resort to traditional therapies to quit smoking (9) .…”