Vaping Prevention and Vaping in Youth (Vapechat)

Boston University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Vaping; Smoking Cessation

Treatments: Behavioral: Virtual Reality Program; Behavioral: VR Program

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06003439

H-43102

Details and patient eligibility

About

Many youth are addicted to nicotine due to increased nicotine vaping (e.g., e-cigarettes). Unfortunately, there are no effective interventions to help teens quit vaping. In addition, existing vaping prevention programs have limited effectiveness because teens have reported that existing available interventions are out of touch with teen's culture and are not appealing to the intended audience. Therefore, to be effective, a vaping intervention must be acceptable, appealing, and engaging to teens, and most importantly, it should be designed to be channeled into an existing infrastructure such as the school setting.

The investigators' research group has designed a vaping prevention and cessation intervention that is implemented as a VR game for high school teens. The overall objective of this research is to assess the acceptability, feasibility, and preliminary efficacy of the VR experience among high school students in two high schools in Boston.

Full description

The investigators will conduct a randomized trial of high school students (freshman to seniors) in the Boston area to determine feasibility, satisfaction, and preliminary efficacy of the VR-based vaping cessation and prevention game. Students will be randomized by class to either receive the Virtual Reality (VR) program (experimental condition) or control condition (questionnaire assessment only). There will be three VR sessions played at school during a health class. Participants in the VR condition will also engage in a gamified home-based component on their smartphone, in order to reinforce skills learned in the school-based VR experience.

Seven high school classes across two high schools will be randomized to VR intervention or assessment only. Health classes in each high school will be randomly assigned using a 1:3 threshold probability using a random digit generator. Participants will be enrolled in the study for approximately 6 weeks. In the first 3 weeks, participants will engage in the VR game experience once per week during their classes. In the fourth and fifth week, participants may make up any VR game session that they missed because of absence (e.g., illness). At week 6, participants will complete the follow-up questionnaire assessments.

Enrollment: 119 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 13 to 19 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Students enrolled at Everett and Quincy High Schools (freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors).
• Students in Health class
• Child assents

Exclusion criteria

• Teacher indicates that participation is not appropriate for the student (e.g., severe mental illness; visual or auditory disability; medical issue)
• Parent(s)/guardian(s) opt student out of the study.
• Prone to motion sickness or seizures.
• Visual impairments that would preclude playing VR or otherwise unable to use VR device.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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119 participants in 2 patient groups

Virtual Reality Program

Experimental group

Description:

Students in classrooms randomized to this group will receive the Virtual Reality vaping cessation and prevention program.

Treatment:

Behavioral: VR Program

Behavioral: Virtual Reality Program

Assessment Only

No Intervention group

Description:

Students in classrooms randomized to this group will not receive the VR intervention but will complete questionnaire assessment only.