Preliminary Effectiveness of Enhanced Text Message + Incentives

University of Kansas

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Smoking Cessation; Pregnancy

Treatments: Behavioral: Incentives; Behavioral: Text Messages

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT07420621

STUDY00149204

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study is a preliminary evaluation of a smoking cessation intervention designed for pregnant women that combines text message support and financial incentives.

The aims of this study are to determine the preliminary feasibility and acceptability of text message + incentives (intervention) vs. text message only (control).

Full description

Pregnant women who smoke and their babies are exposed to known carcinogens and smoking is associated with adverse maternal and birth outcomes. Low-income pregnant women are particularly at risk because they have higher smoking rates and are less likely to quit. Despite continued smoking, most pregnant smokers do not receive smoking cessation counseling and only one in 10 receive referrals to cessation services or follow-up care. Incentives for smoking cessation yield the highest effect sizes of any intervention for pregnant women. Most prior studies evaluating incentives for smoking cessation in this population have used time and resource-intensive in-person visits to verify abstinence for contingent reinforcement. The long-term goal of this research is to reduce the burden of tobacco use by developing and evaluating a highly scalable, effective intervention to support smoking cessation during pregnancy.

Enrollment: 50 estimated patients

Sex: Female

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Pregnant women aged: 18+
• Enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for women, Infants, and Children (WIC) or Medicaid (or applied/applying)
• Self-reported current daily smokers
• Able to communicate in English
• Access to a mobile phone capable of receiving text messages

Exclusion criteria

• Not at all interested in quitting
• Smoke less than 24 days in the past month
• Greater than 30 weeks gestation

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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50 participants in 2 patient groups

Text Messaging + Incentives

Experimental group

Description:

Participants in this arm will receive a combination of text messages designed to support smoking cessation and escalating financial incentives contingent on biochemically-verified smoking abstinence (exhaled carbon monoxide).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Text Messages

Behavioral: Incentives

Text Messaging Only

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants in this arm will receive the same text messaging program as in Arm 1, but without the financial incentives contingent on abstinence.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Text Messages