Avatar-led Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Smoking Cessation (Flexiquit)

University of Cyprus

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Smoking Cessation

Treatments: Behavioral: Flexiquit

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03631212

ΕΕΒΚ/ΕΠ/2013/05

Details and patient eligibility

About

Smoking remains a global concern, especially for youth where developmentally-suited smoking cessation programs are lacking and especially among those not presenting for treatment on their own. We aimed to assess the effectiveness of an avatar-led digitalized smoking cessation intervention (Flexiquit) based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for young adult smokers at all levels of motivation to quit.

Full description

Cigarette smoking is associated with various health problems, particularly certain forms of cancer and early death (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1997). More recently, smoking has become a global problem among youth and it is imperative that research puts an emphasis on prevention and intervention particularly in this age group (World Health Organization, 2009). Over the past few years, research has shown that internet-based interventions are more cost effective, cater to individuals who are unable/unwilling to attend weekly treatment sessions with a therapist, and are promising in terms of improving attrition rates, a major problem with most treatment trials. Moreover, internet-based interventions use technology often utilized to attract youth (interactive games, animation, video clips etc.) and thus may reach and engage a wider range of individuals than traditional face-to-face interventions. ACT is an empirically-based intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies and has been shown to increase psychological flexibility. The aim of the present study is to investigate the usefulness and effectiveness of an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) internet-based smoking cessation intervention program for college, high school and vocational school student smokers. Findings are expected to show that a digitalized program designed to engage youth in smoking cessation can result in quitting smoking and has a high applicability potential especially among the hard-to-reach population of youth.

Enrollment: 300 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 15 to 30 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Regular smoker (at least 1 cigarette per day)
• Parental consent for those under 18years of age

Exclusion criteria

• Currently enrolled in another smoking cessation program

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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300 participants in 2 patient groups

Waitlist control

No Intervention group

Description:

Wait-list control group

Flexiquit

Experimental group

Description:

Digital ACT-based intervention for smoking cessation

Treatment:

Behavioral: Flexiquit