Abstract
BackgroundThe internet is frequently used to share experiences of health and illness, but this phenomenon has not been harnessed as an intervention to achieve health behaviour change. The aim of this study was to determine the feasibility of a randomised trial assessing the effects of a novel, experience-based website as a smoking cessation intervention. The secondary aim was to measure the potential impact on smoking behaviour of both the intervention and a comparator website.MethodsA feasibility randomised controlled single-blind trial assessed a novel, experience-based website containing personal accounts of quitting smoking as a cessation intervention, and a comparator website providing factual information. Feasibility measures including recruitment, and usage of the interventions were recorded, and the following participant-reported outcomes were also measured: Smoking Abstinence Self-Efficacy Questionnaire, the single-item Motivation to Stop Scale, self-reported abstinence, quit attempts and health status outcomes. Eligible smokers from two English regions were entered into the trial and given access to their allocated website for two weeks.ResultsEighty-seven smokers were randomised, 65 completed follow-up (75 %). Median usage was 15 min for the intervention, and 5 min for the comparator (range 0.5–213 min). Median logins for both sites was 2 (range 1–20). All participant-reported outcomes were similar between groups.ConclusionsIt was technically feasible to deliver a novel intervention harnessing the online sharing of personal experiences as a tool for smoking cessation, but recruitment was slow and actual use was relatively low, with attrition from the trial. Future work needs to maximize engagement and to understand how best to assess the value of such interventions in everyday use, rather than as an isolated ‘dose of information’.Trial registration ISRCTN29549695 DOI 10.1186/ISRCTN29549695. Registered 17/05/2013.
Highlights
The internet is frequently used to share experiences of health and illness, but this phenomenon has not been harnessed as an intervention to achieve health behaviour change
This study builds on an emerging evidence base seeking to use digital tools to harness narrative information from peers to influence health behaviour, for example studies on control of hypertension [6], attitudes to breast screening among African American women [7, 8], and lifestyle change for people with coronary heart disease and lowback pain [9]
Our findings show that to a certain extent it was feasible to use a primary care approach to recruit and consent people who smoke to the study, recruitment took a long time, and we only recruited 87 % of our target sample size (87/100)
Summary
The internet is frequently used to share experiences of health and illness, but this phenomenon has not been harnessed as an intervention to achieve health behaviour change. Taking the findings of the Ziebland and Wyke [5] conceptual review as the starting point, we attempted to harness the value of other people’s experiences by developing and testing three experienced-based internet interventions (multi-media websites): one for smoking cessation (reported here), and two other interventions which will be reported separately: one for asthma and one for carers of people with multiple sclerosis. This study builds on an emerging evidence base seeking to use digital tools to harness narrative information from peers to influence health behaviour ( not yet in the field of smoking cessation), for example studies on control of hypertension [6], attitudes to breast screening among African American women [7, 8], and lifestyle change for people with coronary heart disease and lowback pain [9]
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