Previously submitted to: Journal of Medical Internet Research (no longer under consideration since Jul 15, 2021)
Date Submitted: Dec 16, 2016
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Persuasive antismoking interventions: Promoting smoking reduction and cessation through Facebook, email-listserv, and MTurk
Background:
We employed persuasion strategies to develop and evaluate social media- and crowdsourcing-based interventions for smoking reduction and cessation.
Objective:
We delivered various levels of informational and social support to current smokers and pilot-tested the acceptability, feasibility and persuasion effects of three antismoking interventions, Facebook Group (information and social support), Email-Listserv (information), and MTurk (assessment only) interventions.
Methods:
We used Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to solicit potential participants (N=223). Among 173 applicants who confirmed their interest, 46 U.S.-based eligible smokers were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. During the 4-week intervention, participants in the Email-Listserv (n=15) and Facebook (n=16) conditions received 56 randomly-ordered antismoking information materials. The Facebook Group participants also had the opportunity to exchange social support with other group members. MTurk participants (n=15) did not receive these antismoking messages or social support. All participants completed a baseline survey, weekly surveys and a 2-week follow-up survey via MTurk.
Results:
We achieved 100% study retention: all participants engaged in their assigned intervention and completed final assessments. Intervention feasibility and acceptability scores were above average. Participants significantly reduced the number of weekly-smoked cigarettes measured at baseline and at follow-up, t(45)=9.51, p<.01, Md =80.91, SDd = 57.70, 95% CI=63.78-98.05, , and 12-18% quit smoking, with the Facebook group reporting the higher rate of quitting. Smoking reduction did not significantly differ across conditions, F(2,43)=1.56, p=.22. Perceived social support was significantly higher among Facebook Group participants (M=4.63, SD=.71), compared to Email-Listserv participants (M=3.64, SD=1.15) and MTurk participants (M=3.38, SD=1.32), F(2,43)= 5.79, p = .006, η²=.21. Sustained motivation to quit was a significant predictor of reduction in smoking when baseline smoking was adjusted, B=10.79, SE=5.27, F(1, 45)=4.18, p=.05, 95% CI=.12-21.47.
Conclusions:
We leveraged strategic persuasion principles as well as features of Facebook, Email, and MTurk to disseminate antismoking content, achieve rapid outreach to smokers in the US and facilitate social support among current smokers. These social media and crowdsourcing platforms were acceptable and feasible in delivering antismoking interventions, maintaining motivation to quit, and promoting smoking reduction and cessation. Our findings suggest that all three intervention platforms may be beneficial, but the social support within Facebook user groups may be particularly promising and deserves further research.
ClinicalTrial:
NA
Citation
