Quit Sense Feasibility
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Feasibility randomised controlled trial of a smoking cessation smartphone app that delivers ‘context aware’ behavioural support in real time
IRAS ID
270432
Contact name
Felix Naughton
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The University of East Anglia
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN12326962
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Summary or Research
Preliminary research has found smokers who are struggling to quit want help to stop them reaching for a cigarette when they have an urge to smoke. Urges to smoke can happen at any time, most often due to where a person is (e.g. at work) or what they are doing (e.g. socialising). It is not practical to have a person following them around offering advice and support when they get an urge, however most people own smartphones.
Quit Sense is an app that uses the in-built sensors in smartphones to work out where someone is or what they are doing. It then provides ‘in the moment’ support to help them avoid or manage urges to smoke.
Quit Sense works by asking smokers, before they start trying to quit, for information about their surroundings (e.g. home, work) whenever they smoke and how they are feeling (e.g. down, stressed). Each time this happens the app uses the phone’s in-built sensors (e.g. GPS) to record their location. Once smokers start a quit attempt, Quit Sense sends them advice on how to avoid smoking whenever they approach or spend time in a place where they previously told it they had smoked. Quit Sense uses the information the person has given about their surroundings and feelings when they smoke to match advice and support to each location. This is a new approach to help smokers and pilot studies showed that Quit Sense delivers support as expected and participants like it.
We will recruit 160 smokers using online adverts on Google search and social media platforms (e.g., Facebook). Participants will have an equal chance of being put into one of two groups. A ‘usual care’ group, who will be sent a web link to the NHS SmokeFree website, providing standard information about NHS help to stop smoking and an App group who will receive the same web link but will also be given access to the Quit Sense app. Participants will be followed up at approximately 6 weeks and 6 months post enrollment in the study to collect the information described above and to compare groups on smoking measures.Summary of Results
Smokers often fail to quit because of urges to smoke triggered by their surroundings (e.g. being around other smokers). We developed a smartphone app (‘Quit Sense’) which learns about an individual’s surroundings and the locations where they smoke. During a quit attempt Quit Sense uses in-built sensors to identify when smokers are in those locations and sends them in-the-moment advice to help prevent them from smoking.
We ran a feasibility study to help us plan for a future large study to see if Quit Sense helps smokers to quit. This feasibility study was designed to tell us how many participants complete study measures; recruitment costs; the number of participants who install and use Quit Sense; and estimate whether Quit Sense is likely to help smokers to stop and how it might do this.
We recruited 209 smokers using online adverts on Google search, Facebook and Instagram, at a cost of £19 per participant. Participants then had an equal chance of receiving a weblink to the NHS SmokeFree website (‘usual care group’) or receive that same weblink plus a link to the Quit Sense app (‘Quit Sense group’). Three-quarters of the Quit Sense group installed the app on their phone and half of these used the app for at least one week. We followed up 77% of participants at 6 months to collect study data. At 6 months, more people in the Quit Sense group had stopped smoking (12%) than the usual care group (3%). It was not clear how the app helped smokers to quit based on measures in study questionnaires though interviews found the process of training the app helped people quit through learning about what triggered their smoking behaviour.
The findings support undertaking a large study to tell us whether Quit Sense really does help smokers to quit.REC name
Wales REC 7
REC reference
19/WA/0361
Date of REC Opinion
28 Jan 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion