Previously submitted to: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (no longer under consideration since Apr 25, 2023)
Date Submitted: Jun 29, 2022
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Usage, Acceptability and Primarily Effectiveness of an Integrated mHealth-based Modality for Smoking Cessation Interventions in Western China：Cohort Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Due to many limitations of smoking cessation services in China, more than 90% of Chinese smokers did not access any professional help to quit. Some of these limitations could be minimized by mobile health (mHealth) technologies. A novel integrated mHealth-based modality for smoking cessation interventions (WeChat + Quitline modality, WQ modality) was developed and applied in a large public welfare project (China Western-QUIT Program) in western China.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usage, acceptability and preliminary effectiveness of the WQ modality in the population from western China.
Methods:
A prospective cohort study was conducted in western China between April and August 2021. Smokers or their relatives were recruited through online advertisement and medical staff referral. After using the services of the WQ modality for one month, the usage data of each service were downloaded from quitline and WeChat platform. The self-reported awareness, use and satisfaction with each service were collected by a telephone interview, and self-reported 7-day point prevalence of abstinence (PPA) and quit attempt rate among baseline current smokers were also evaluated at one month follow-up.
Results:
Of the 17,326 people from western China using the WQ modality, the largest number of users was WeChat official account (11,173), followed by WeChat mini program (3,734), WeChat group (669), and quitline (541inbound calls, 605outbound calls). Among participants who completed the baseline survey (n=2,221), over 70% of them were aware of WeChat-based services and over 50% of them used them, whereas the awareness rate (11.1%) and utilization rate (0.5 %) of quitline were relatively low. The median satisfaction scores across all services were 9 out of 10 points [IQR 8-9]. At one month follow-up, among the baseline current smokers (n=1,257), self-reported 7-day PPA was 41.8% (526/1,257), and another 225 smokers (17.9%) reported making a quit attempt.
Conclusions:
The WQ modality could be well utilized and acceptable, and it has great potential to assist smokers in quitting in the western China, which provides accessible and effective mHealth-based smoking cessation services during the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19.
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