None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Whilst personal, face-to-face interventions are the ‘gold standard’, not all patients visit their GP over the course of a year. The tobacco health target now focuses on the entire enrolled population and so ways to engage all patients are needed. Many PHOs have invested resource in telephoning patients who smoke to offer support to quit. Whilst effective in engaging smokers these calls can be time and resource intensive. Technology, such as mobile phone messaging and the Internet, offers potential low cost solutions. PHOs have been sending single text messages to known smokers to support practice efforts in encouraging their patients to quit. This appears to have some success. However, it is possible that multiple messages sent out over an extended time frame will prompt a greater response than a single message. Provision of a more emotionally salient offer of help to quit (e.g. a short video message from the patients GP) and more detailed information on what is available may make patients more likely to accept this offer of help to quit. This study examines the effects of two innovations to delivering an offer of support to quit smoking to current smokers enrolled with a primary health care organisation. The study objectives are: 1. To compare the response rate of increased frequency of SMS text messages that offer support to patients who smoke to quit with a single SMS text messages (current best practice). 2. To compare the response rate of a SMS text messages containing a link to a YouTube video of a GP making an offer of support to quit smoking with a single SMS text messages (current best practice). 3. To assess patients acceptability of the messages.
Interventions
Intervention 1: In addition to usual care (see control below) patients who do not respond will receive another message in four weeks time. This message will be slightly different to the first, but will ask them to respond. A third message will be sent to patients who do not respond in another four weeks. The second and third messages will be different in that it will acknowledge that we have already sent a previous text and this is a follow-up and it will enable people to opt out of further mess
Intervention 1: In addition to usual care (see control below) patients who do not respond will receive another message in four weeks time. This message will be slightly different to the first, but will ask them to respond. A third message will be sent to patients who do not respond in another four weeks. The second and third messages will be different in that it will acknowledge that we have already sent a previous text and this is a follow-up and it will enable people to opt out of further messages. Intervention 2: In addition to usual care (see control below) patients will receive a text message with a hyperlink to the YouTube video will be sent to patients four weeks after the usual care text message. A GP from one of the study practices will record a brief (30-60 seconds) motivational message to patients who smoke. The motivational message will contain the following: a brief introduction by the GP recording the message, including a short message on the benefits of quitting and then an offer of support to quit, including a brief description of the support available. The video will be uploaded onto YouTube. A template will be designed that will help GPs to deliver this message.
Sponsors
Whanganui Regional Health Network
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Primary purpose
Educational / counselling / training
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
25 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
1. 25 years of age or over 2. Recorded as a current smoker in the Practice Management System 3. Have a mobile phone number without any advised restriction of contact
Exclusion criteria
1. less than 25 years of age or over 2. do not have a mobile phone number
Outcome results
None listed