Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Oct 15, 2020
Date Accepted: Apr 2, 2021
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Investigating the Self-Efficacy and Motivation to Quit of Smokers Trying to Quit: An Evaluation of Smoking Cessation Mobile Apps
ABSTRACT
Background:
Falling trends in the number of individuals accessing face-to-face support leaves a significant gap in treatment options for smokers seeking to quit. Face-to-face behavioural support interventions try to target the self-efficacy and motivation to quit of smokers, as these factors are associated with increased likelihood of making quit attempts and successfully quitting.
Objective:
Our study aims to better understand smoking cessation mobile applications by investigating if they can impact smokers’ self-efficacy and motivation to quit. Our aim is to evaluate self-efficacy and motivation to quit levels of smokers before and after the usage of smoking cessation mobile apps.
Methods:
Smokers seeking to quit were recruited to participate in a four-week online study. After screening, eligible participants were assigned to a mobile application (Kwit or Quit Genius). The smoking self-efficacy questionnaire and the motivation to stop smoking scale were used to measure self-efficacy and motivation to quit respectively. Both were assessed at baseline, mid-study (2 weeks) and end-study (4 weeks). Paired sample t-tests investigated differences between study timepoints, and linear regression models investigated associations with change in self-efficacy and motivation to quit between baseline and end-study.
Results:
116 participants completed the study, with the majority being male (61%), highly employed (66%) and highly educated (75%). A large proportion of participants had low-moderate dependence on nicotine (92%). A statistically significant increase of 5.09 points (95%CI: 1.83 to 8.34) from 37.38 points at baseline in self-efficacy was found at end-study. Similarly, a statistically significant increase of 0.38 points (95%CI: 0.06 to 0.70) from 5.94 points at baseline in motivation to quit was found at end-study. Gender, age and nicotine dependence were not statistically significantly associated with change in self-efficacy and motivation to quit.
Conclusions:
The assessed mobile apps positively impacted the self-efficacy and motivation to quit of smokers making quit attempts. This has important implications on possible future use of digitalised interventions. However, further research is needed to assess whether digital interventions could supplement or replace traditional forms of therapy.
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