Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: May 4, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: May 4, 2018 - Jul 10, 2018
Date Accepted: Jul 10, 2018
(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Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
A Face-Aging App for Smoking Cessation in a Waiting Room Setting: Pilot Study in an HIV Outpatient Clinic
Background:
There is strong evidence for the effectiveness of addressing tobacco use in health care settings. However, few smokers receive cessation advice when visiting a hospital. Implementing smoking cessation technology in outpatient waiting rooms could be an effective strategy for change, with the potential to expose almost all patients visiting a health care provider without preluding physician action needed.
Objective:
The objective of this study was to develop an intervention for smoking cessation that would make use of the time patients spend in a waiting room by passively exposing them to a face-aging, public morphing, tablet-based app, to pilot the intervention in a waiting room of an HIV outpatient clinic, and to measure the perceptions of this intervention among smoking and nonsmoking HIV patients.
Methods:
We developed a kiosk version of our 3-dimensional face-aging app Smokerface, which shows the user how their face would look with or without cigarette smoking 1 to 15 years in the future. We placed a tablet with the app running on a table in the middle of the waiting room of our HIV outpatient clinic, connected to a large monitor attached to the opposite wall. A researcher noted all the patients who were using the waiting room. If a patient did not initiate app use within 30 seconds of waiting time, the researcher encouraged him or her to do so. Those using the app were asked to complete a questionnaire.
Results:
During a 19-day period, 464 patients visited the waiting room, of whom 187 (40.3%) tried the app and 179 (38.6%) completed the questionnaire. Of those who completed the questionnaire, 139 of 176 (79.0%) were men and 84 of 179 (46.9%) were smokers. Of the smokers, 55 of 81 (68%) said the intervention motivated them to quit (men: 45, 68%; women: 10, 67%); 41 (51%) said that it motivated them to discuss quitting with their doctor (men: 32, 49%; women: 9, 60%); and 72 (91%) perceived the intervention as fun (men: 57, 90%; women: 15, 94%). Of the nonsmokers, 92 (98%) said that it motivated them never to take up smoking (men: 72, 99%; women: 20, 95%). Among all patients, 102 (22.0%) watched another patient try the app without trying it themselves; thus, a total of 289 (62.3%) of the 464 patients were exposed to the intervention (average waiting time 21 minutes).
Conclusions:
A face-aging app implemented in a waiting room provides a novel opportunity to motivate patients visiting a health care provider to quit smoking, to address quitting at their subsequent appointment and thereby encourage physician-delivered smoking cessation, or not to take up smoking.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.