NCT03069482

Feasibility Trial of a Tailored Smoking Cessation App for People With Serious Mental Illness

• Status: Completed
• Phase: Phase 1
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 63 (actual)
• Sponsor: Duke University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Quitting smoking has important health benefits for people with serious mental illness, more than half of whom are smokers. Smoking reductions in this population, in turn, could contribute to saving billions of dollars in healthcare expenditures. Finding ways to deliver more effective and wider reaching smoking cessation interventions to individuals with serious mental illness is a pressing priority. Smartphone apps are a wide reaching technology that could provide a viable platform to deliver smoking cessation interventions for individuals with serious mental illness. However, do smoking cessation apps need to be tailored for people with serious mental illness to ensure their success? Or can providers simply use standard and freely available smoking cessation mobile health treatments designed for the general population? Furthermore, is it feasible to conduct mHealth trials in this population? Therefore, this trial will test whether (1) a tailored smoking cessation app for people with serious mental illness results in higher levels of engagement with smoking cessation content as compared to an app designed for the general population and (2) smoking cessation mHealth trials can be feasibly conducted in this population.

Detailed description

Smoking tobacco shortens the lifespan of adults with serious mental illness by 25 years and contributes to $317 billion expenditures in healthcare, indirect loss of earnings and disability benefits. Determining whether it is possible to deliver more effective and wider reaching smoking cessation interventions to individuals with serious mental illness is a high priority. Smartphone apps are a wide reaching technology that could provide individuals with serious mental illness the necessary skills for quitting. This feasibility trial will test whether a tailored smoking cessation app for people with serious mental illness, Learn to Quit, results in higher levels of engagement with smoking cessation content as compared to an app designed for the general population, NCI QuitGuide. The trial will also demonstrate whether it is possible to (a) feasibly recruit and retain individuals with serious mental illness in an mHealth clinical trial, and (b) successfully gather smoking cessation outcomes. Ninety individuals with serious mental illness will be randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In the experimental condition, participants will use the Learn to Quit app. In the comparator condition, participants will use the NCI QuitGuide app. Participants in both conditions will receive Nicotine Replacement Therapy (standard dosing of nicotine patch + 1-week course of 4mg nicotine lozenges) and technical coaching. Study duration will be 4 months, with four follow-up appointments at 1-month, 2-month, 3-month, and 4-months.

Conditions

• Nicotine Addiction
• Serious Mental Illness

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	Learn to Quit App	A smartphone app designed for individuals with serious mental illness. The main intervention components of the app are skills based on an intervention called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy that will (a) teach smoking cessation skills and (b) help cope with mental health symptoms. The app incorporates gaming features to keep users engaged, and a tracking component to record smoking habits and moods.
DRUG	Nicotine patch	Participants enrolled in the study will be given an 8-week course of Nicotine patches. The 8-week course of trans-dermal nicotine patches starting at 21mg/24h for 4 weeks, then transitioning to 14mg/24h for 2 weeks, and finally to 7mg/24h for the last 2 weeks. This dosing will follow recommendations contained in the US DHHS Clinical Practice Guidelines.
DRUG	Nicotine lozenge	Each participant will be given a 1-week course of 4mg Nicotine lozenges to be taken orally as nicotine cravings arise (about 10 lozenges per day). They will be directed to use them for the week following their quit date, using no more than once every 1-2 hours. This dosing will follow recommendations contained in the US DHHS Clinical Practice Guidelines.
BEHAVIORAL	Technical Coaching	Coaching to assist the user on the use of each assigned smartphone app. This coaching will be delivered by research staff following a coaching procedure. These in-person coaching meetings will be brief (\~15 minutes), done on a weekly basis for 4 weeks, and will have a focus on providing technical assistance.
DEVICE	NCI QuitGuide App	A smartphone app developed by the National Cancer Institute which uses recommendations contained in the US DHHS Clinical Practice Guidelines and smokefree.gov. NCI QuitGuide has the following intervention components: (a) psycho-education about the impact of smoking in health, (b) tracking of smoking habits, and (c) Tips for quitting (e.g., distraction strategies).

Timeline

• Start date: 2017-05-15
• Primary completion: 2019-01-17
• Completion: 2019-01-17
• First posted: 2017-03-03
• Last updated: 2020-11-10
• Results posted: 2020-03-23

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States

Regulatory

• FDA-regulated drug study