Study: Can mHealth encourage smokers to quit?

Jessica Kim Cohen -

Nearly 30 percent of smokers who completed an mHealth cessation intervention refrained from smoking for at least 30 days following the program, according to a study in JMIR mHealth and uHealth.

The researchers — led by Brian M. Iacoviello, PhD, a psychiatry researcher at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and director of scientific affairs at Click Therapeutics, both based in New York City — recruited 416 participants who smoked five or more cigarettes daily.

Researchers assessed participants' use of Click Therapeutics' app Clickotine, a smoking intervention tool based on U.S. clinical practice guidelines. The app includes a personalized cessation curriculum, strategies to overcome withdrawl symptoms and access to health coaches.

The average participant opened the app 100.6 times and maintained engagement with the app for 5.3 weeks during the eight-week study. A total of 45.2 percent of users reported seven-day abstinence from smoking and 26.2 percent reported 30-day abstinence. Of those who completed the entire program, 51.5 percent went seven days smoke-free and 29.9 percent reported refraining from smoking for 30 days.

"Clickotine users reported encouraging quit rates while reporting few adverse events," researchers concluded. "Clickotine users appeared to demonstrate encouraging indicators of engagement in terms of the number of app opens, number of program interactions and continued engagement over time."

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