Short-bout Handgrip Exercise for Smoking Cessation

Summary

Smoking is highly addictive and quitting is difficult. Relapse is common because of withdrawal symptoms such as craving, headache, mood change and irritation. In addition to pharmacotherapy, exercise can acutely reduce craving, withdrawal symptoms and negative affect in regular smokers. Exercise effectively reduces negative affect and attentional bias towards smoking, and hence might relieve craving.Instead of long duration (30+ minutes) exercise, short-bout exercise is more easily adhered to in daily living and achieves similar health gain as long-bout exercise.Handgrip, which enhances training of hand-griping strength, is a common short-bout exercise tool used for lowering blood and arterial pressure.Therefore, this exercise tool might also raise smokers' interest to initiate this simple and effective exercise for quit attempt.

This RCT study was proposed by using short-bout exercise (intervention) and healthy diet (control ) for smoking cessation, targeting adult clients who enrolled in smoking cessation service of ICSC, smoke 10 cigarettes or more a day when they initially receive the treatment from ICSC, can access to Internet by using smart phone and interested in participating in an exercise/diet program for smoking cessation. All the participants will be randomized the subjects to one of the RCT groups by using sequentially numbered, opaque sealed envelope method. Participants from both groups will be helped to install a phone application (App) in their smartphone which can send reminders of doing exercise or healthy diet. Also, the participants will enter their smoking and craving data by the App by answering the automatic pooped daily questionnaire. Telephone follow-up will be conducted at 2,6 and 12 months.

Conditions

• Smoking Cessation

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Video about exercise

Video about short-bout exercise will be played for the participants.

BEHAVIORAL

App about exercise

A smartphone App about exercise will be installed in participants' mobile phone.

BEHAVIORAL

Leaflet about exercise

A leaflet about exercise will be provided for the participants.

BEHAVIORAL

Video about diet

Video about healthy diet will be played for the participants.

BEHAVIORAL

App about diet

A smartphone App about healthy diet will be installed in participants' mobile phone.

BEHAVIORAL

Leaflet about diet

A leaflet about healthy diet will be provided for the participants.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Tung Wah Group of Hospitals

  collaborator OTHER

• The University of Hong Kong

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Tai Hing Lam, MD · The University of Hong Kong

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2016-10-31

Primary Completion

2017-04-30

Completion

2018-05-31

Countries

• Hong Kong

Study Locations