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 emails 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, as well as 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 post-enrollment. The vast majority of participants agreed that they liked the program at 2 and 4 weeks post-enrollment (90.5% and 82.3%, respectively). Support for text messages was found to be moderate, and higher than that of the email and web components. Seventy-five percent of participants 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 following 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 protocol 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.

Text2Quit: an analysis of participant engagement in the mobile smoking cessation program

“…These automated programs have potential for substantial reachin the United States, 85% of all adults have mobile phones (5) and 72% of mobile phone owners send and receive text messages (6). Such programs generally include interactive elements designed to mirror many of the elements of in-person counseling interventions including goal-setting and feedback, social support, and provision of a personalized quit plan (7). Overall, these programswhich send out automated messages timed around a quit datehave been found to double a user's chances of quitting.…”

Stage-Based mHealth Communication Interventions for HPV Education

“…Newly developed and recently conducted mHealth interventions and programs include but are not limited to HIV/AIDS campaigns [26], HIV knowledge promotion [27], prenatal care promotion [28], and smoking cessation [29]. Clearly mHealth technology and mHealth interventions offer opportunities as well as challenges not yet fully realized [30].…”

The Use of Vital Statistics Data for Research of Consequence: Birth Outcomes and Population Health in a Rural Region

“…Text4baby [14], Smoking Cessation and Reduction in Pregnancy Treatment (SCRIPT) [15], and Text2Quit [16] involve individual in-person interactions costing hundreds or thousands of dollars per person reached. In the realm of smoking during pregnancy they have not been brought to scale and never will.…”