A behavioral study has found that motivational text messages sent to smokers' mobile phones can double their chances of giving up tobacco. The “txt2stop” trial at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and funded by the Medical Research Council tested the effects of inspirational text messages designed to encourage quitting on almost 3,000 smokers. Participants were twice as likely to banish their habit as another group sent texts unrelated to smoking.
The messages were designed by experts with the help of smokers, provided encouragement up to “quit day”, advice on keeping off weight while quitting, and help with craving. One example read: “This is it! - QUIT DAY, throw away all your fags. TODAY is the start of being QUIT forever, you can do it!” Another read, “Cravings last less than five minutes on average. To help distract yourself, try sipping a drink slowly until the craving is over.”
The study participants received five text messages a day for five weeks, followed by three per week for the next six months. People were able to receive instant messages at times of need by texting the word “crave” or “lapse”. Another control group was also selected who were smokers and were sent texts simply thanking them for their participation, requesting confirmation of contact details, or mentioning a range of topics not connected to smoking.
At end of the study saliva of all the participants were tested for cotinine - a tobacco break-down chemical to verify that smokers really had quit. They confirmed how many had managed to stop smoking for six months. The results, published in The Lancet medical journal, showed a 10.7% success rate for those receiving the motivational texts compared with 4.9% for members of the control group.
Dr Caroline Free, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who led the Medical Research Council-funded trial, said, “Text messages are a very convenient way for smokers to receive support to quit. People described txt2stop as being like having a 'friend' encouraging them or an 'angel on their shoulder'. It helped people resist the temptation to smoke.”
Prof Max Parmer, director of the Medical Research Council clinical trials unit, added, “Smoking kills more than five million people each year, and two out of every three smokers have said at some point that they would like to give up. By carrying out a large scale trial like this to see whether text messages can help people truly free themselves of their addiction, this research has shown that texting could be a powerful tool to help people to walk away from cigarettes for good. The MRC has been tackling the problem of smoking for over half a century, and we're committed to funding research that has the potential to change so many people's lives.”
Glyn McIntosh, from the smoking cessation group Quit, which helped develop the text messages and recruit volunteers for the study, said, “We are delighted with the results and hope that text motivation will now become a standard part of the quitting process.”
Unfortunately, the abstinence rate in the motivational text group was “low,” Dr. Derrick Bennett and Dr. Jonathan Emberson of the Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit at the University of Oxford, UK, said in a journal commentary accompanying the study. The abstinence rate resembled that of other quit smoking strategies, Bennett and Emberson said. The findings may be particularly useful for smoking cessation in not only high-income and middle-income countries but also for low-income countries where the mobile phone sector is rapidly growing, they said.
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