Chatbot Counselling for Smoking Cessation in Youths

Not Applicable

Active, not recruiting

• Conditions: Tobacco Use; Smoking Cessation
• Interventions: Behavioral: Chatbot counselling; Behavioral: Peer counselling

• Registration Number: NCT06470776
• Lead Sponsor: The University of Hong Kong

Brief Summary

The goal of this pilot trial is to develop and examine the trial feasibility and acceptability of a chatbot for smoking cessation in youth smokers. Specific aims include:

1. To assess how many youth smokers accept the invitation to participate in the trial

2. To assess the retention of the participants through 6 months after treatment initiation

3. To assess the acceptability of the chatbot in terms of participants' compliance and usability rating of the chatbot.

4. To estimate the intervention effect on abstinence outcomes

5. To explore the participants' perception and experiences in the chatbot

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2024-06-17
• Study First Submitted QC: 2024-06-17
• Study First Posted: 2024-06-24
• Study Start: 2024-07-07
• Status Verified: 2024-11
• Last Update Submitted: 2024-11-27
• Last Update Posted: 2024-12-02
• Primary Completion: 2025-07-31
• Study Completion: 2025-10-31

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: ACTIVE_NOT_RECRUITING
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 154

Inclusion Criteria

1. Hong Kong residents aged 25 years or younger
2. Used a tobacco product in the past 30 days, including cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, heated tobacco products, etc.
3. Able to communicate in Chinese
4. Own a smartphone with internet access

Exclusion Criteria

1. Diagnosed with a mental disease or on regular psychotropic drugs, or
2. Participating in other ongoing smoking cessation studies.

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Chatbot counselling	Chatbot counselling	Smoking cessation counselling delivered by chatbot
Peer counselling	Peer counselling	Smoking cessation counselling delivered by peer counsellors

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Recruitment rate	Through recruitment completion, about 9 months	Number of participants divided by the number of eligible subjects
Retention rate	6 months	Number of participants completed the follow-up divided by the number of participants
Biochemically-validated tobacco abstinence	6 months after randomisation	Defined as a negative result of the iScreen OFD test for measuring salivary cotinine (with a cut-off of lower than 30ng/mL)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Self-reported 50% smoking reduction	6 months after randomisation	Smoking reduction by at least half of the baseline daily number of cigarettes in continued smokers
Self-reported 24-hour quit attempt	6 months after randomisation	Serious attempt to quit smoking for 24 hours or longer in daily smokers
Self-reported 7-day point-prevalence tobacco abstinence	6 months after randomisation	Being completely smoke-free in the past 7 days
Self-reported 30-day point-prevalence tobacco abstinence	6 months after randomisation	Being completely smoke-free in the past 30 days

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

HKU Youth Quitline; 🇭🇰 Hong Kong, Hong Kong