Study finds texts help smokers quit

A London-based study has found smoking cessation text messaging services double smokers’ likelihood of quitting.

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine conducted a six month programme, txt2stop, involving nearly 6,000 participants to gauge the effectiveness of cessation services via text message.
Participants were asked to set a quit date within the first two weeks of beginning the programme, and were sent five text messages a day for the first five weeks and then three a week for the next 26 weeks.

Messages were developed with input of smokers and smoking cessation professionals and provided by the Clinical Trials Unit in New Zealand, which had conducted a similar survey, through scheduling software and an online gateway.

They included motivational tips such as ‘to make things easier for yourself, try having some distractions ready for cravings’ and, ‘cravings last less than five minutes on average. To help distract yourself, try sipping a drink slowly until the craving is over.’

The report shows the smoking cessation support doubled quit rates when measured after six months.
It concluded the txt2stop intervention should be considered as an addition to existing smoking cessation services.

“In this trial the intervention was effective on its own and when used alongside other smoking cessation interventions.”

It also suggested scaling up the delivery of the service at a national or even international level, which would be “technically easy”.

“The intervention might require some adaptation, translation into other languages, and local evaluation before delivery to other populations. The intervention is low cost and likely to be highly cost-effective.”
The txt2stop trial was funded by the Medical research Council and run in partnership with the QUIT charity

As reported in: http://www.ehi.co.uk/news/mobile/7014/study-finds-texts-help-smokers-quit