A Pilot Randomized Control Trial to Help Youth Smokers to Quit Smoking:

The University of Hong Kong (HKU)

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Smoking Cessation

Treatments: Behavioral: Control group; Behavioral: Adventure-based intervention group; Behavioral: WhatsApp intervention group

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03021655

YouthQuitline_RCT

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study is a 3-arm randomized controlled trial including: (1) Adventure-based training intervention group, (2) WhatsApp intervention group and (3) Control group.

Full description

Depression and stress are obstacles of youth smokers to quit smoking, youth smokers who have positive thinking and less depression exhibited smoking abstinence at last. Adventure-based training could enhance participants' self-efficacy, self-esteem and also improve mental health of children and youth by doing physical activity. On the other hand, previous mobile phone-based studies (e.g. short messaging services or Apps) showed that the mental health of youth had been improved by providing instant response to the subjects when they felt depressed. A paper published recently proved that WhatsApp group could prevent relapse among the quitters. Thus, adventure-based training and social support in WhatsApp group would predict to reduce depression and stress so as to quit smoking in youth.

Enrollment: 300 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 12 to 25 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Hong Kong resident aged 25 or below
• Able to communicate, read and write in Cantonese/ Chinese
• Smoked in the past 30 days
• Mobile can access internet
• Would access internet through mobile or at home

Exclusion criteria

• Have difficulty to communicate via telephone
• Ever used/using psychiatric drugs
• Physically disabled
• Having queries irrelevant to tobacco control
• Undergoing other smoking cessation service

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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300 participants in 3 patient groups

Adventure-based intervention group

Experimental group

Description:

Adventure-based intervention group included 1 day-camp and will be divided into 2 parts: (1) physical activity such as wall climbing, ropes course etc, (2) health education delivering about the relationship of self-efficacy, self-esteem, emotion and smoking abstinence. The training will be held before the 6-month follow-up. Telephone follow-up will be conducted at 1-week, 1-, 3-, 6-, 9-, 12- and 24-month.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Adventure-based intervention group

WhatsApp intervention group

Experimental group

Description:

For WhatsApp intervention group, not more than 8 subjects with same gender will be assigned into a group. Messages about mood and stress management will be sent to the group per week and the group will last for 6 months. It aims to relieve their pressure and emotion by sharing their unhappy things with other subjects. Telephone follow-up will be conducted at 1-week, 1-, 3-, 6-, 9-, 12- and 24-month.

Treatment:

Behavioral: WhatsApp intervention group

Control group

Other group

Description:

For the control group, the subjects will receive telephone counseling on quitting smoking at 1-week, 1-, 3-, 6-, 9-, 12- and 24-month.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Control group