Mobile instant messaging supported brief physical exercise intervention for smoking cessation: a community-based,...

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Behavioral Science
• Exercise Science

Background:

• Supervised exercise programs for smoking cessation face scalability and generalizability challenges.
• Mobile instant messaging (MIM) presents a scalable platform for delivering exercise support with minimal direct supervision.
• Assessing the efficacy of MIM-supported brief physical exercise interventions for smoking cessation is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of a brief physical exercise intervention supported by MIM on smoking cessation.
• To compare biochemically validated 7-day point prevalence abstinence (PPA) rates between intervention and control groups at 6 months.

Main Methods:

• A two-arm, parallel, cluster randomized controlled trial involving daily smokers aged 18+ from 70 community sites in Hong Kong.
• The intervention group received brief cessation advice, exercise instructions, and MIM-based reminders for 3 months.
• The control group received brief cessation advice alone. The primary outcome was biochemically validated 7-day PPA at 6 months.

Main Results:

• Biochemically validated abstinence rates at 6 months were non-significantly higher in the MIM intervention group (10.4%) compared to the control group (9.1%).
• Self-reported abstinence rates also showed no significant difference between groups (21.9% vs 19.5%).
• Adherence to exercise declined over time, and physical activity levels at 6 months were similar between groups.

Conclusions:

• The MIM-supported brief physical exercise intervention did not significantly increase smoking abstinence compared to brief cessation advice alone.
• The intervention also failed to significantly improve physical activity levels at the 6-month follow-up.
• Further research may be needed to optimize MIM-based interventions for smoking cessation and physical activity.