Robyn Whittaker*, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Track: Research Presentation Topic: Public (e-)health, population health technologies, surveillance Presentation Type: Oral presentation Submission Type: Single Presentation Building: MaRS Centre, 101 College Street, Toronto, Canada Room: CR3 Date: 2009-09-17 03:30 PM – 05:00 PM Last modified: 2009-08-14

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Background: While most young adults who smoke say they want to quit, few access cessation support services. Based on a previous successful text messaging smoking cessation intervention, we hypothesized that a multimedia mobile phone programme that utilises observational learning (from social cognitive theory) could help young adult smokers to quit smoking.
Objective: To develop and test a multimedia smoking cessation intervention delivered solely by mobile phone.
Methods: A role modelling intervention was developed by an expert group based on the principles of youth development, social cognitive theory, effective smoking cessation interventions, and social marketing. Over 240 young people participated in its development via focus groups, an online survey, content pre-testing, and a pilot study. The intervention involves a programme of short ‘video diary’ messages from a young quitter to participants’ phones. Participants select from seven role models and can change role models during the programme. Participants select their Quit Day and receive two messages/day for six weeks, including video diary messages, text messages and animations. The messages then reduce in frequency to a total of six months. Participants are able to request extra messages on demand to deal with cravings or lapses. An IT system was developed for message scheduling and delivery, and data collection by self-completed web-based forms.
Results: Development phase findings included the importance of selecting ‘real’ and honest role models with believable stories. Fifteen people joined the 4-week pilot study - twelve participants liked the programme, eight used the extra assistance for cravings and nine were happy with the regimen of two messages/day. Nine participants (60%) stopped smoking during the programme. Recruitment for a large randomised controlled trial took place during 2008 to early 2009 via radio and internet advertising targeted at young adults. Recruitment was more difficult than expected with many extra methods tried at intervals resulting in 225 participants. Approximately 24% of participants were Maori (indigenous population of New Zealand), and 45% of participants earned less than NZ$30,001pa. Around 14% of participants requested extra messages for cravings and 8% for lapses. There were some technological issues, mainly affecting data collection rather than delivery of the programme, which were exacerbated by difficulties in detecting them in a timely manner. Preliminary results will be available for presentation at the conference (not currently available).
Conclusions: Recruitment into this mobile phone cessation intervention study was more difficult than expected. It may be that although many young adult smokers say they want to quit, they still do not value the benefits of quitting immediately enough to be prompted to do so by advertising or the attractions of a novel communications technology programme. Findings will be discussed in the presentation.