Smoking Cessation Programme in Workplaces in Hong Kong (Phase ⅤII)

Summary

Smoking cessation (SC) interventions using behavioral economics mainly focus on financial incentives, which were used to change health behaviors by utilizing a reward system to enhance long-term maintenance. Incentives have been demonstrated to enhance SC across various populations with moderate effects. Interventions for smoking cessation characterized by financial incentives focus primarily on the potential for monetary gain rather than loss. Changing the motivational strategy to combine disclosing losses with providing financial incentives may increase the effectiveness of financial consequence-based smoking cessation interventions. Thus, this study aims to test, by a 2-arm RCT, the effectiveness of an intervention of which includes mobile phone-based intervention combined with small incentive and smoking cessation in workplaces in Hong Kong; identify facilitators and barriers of successful policy implementation and quitting; examine and evaluate the company environment and their policies in promoting smoking cessation.

Conditions

• Smoking Cessation

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

General health talk

Health talk provided information about hazards of tobacco (active smoking, second- and third-hand smoke), benefits of quitting smoking and methods to quit smoking.

BEHAVIORAL

Personalized chat-based interactions

Individual chat-based interactions for 3 months consist of 2 parts. The first part includes regular messages via instant messages (IM). These messages will serve as probes for real-time chat-based support in which more details explanations and motivation to encourage quitting due to financial reasons. The second part includes real-time psycho-behavioral intervention delivered by trained cessation counsellors using health economic principles on behavioral change to motivate smokers to quit. The conversation is based on participants' socio-demographic characteristics, smoking habit at baseline, and updated smoking status and mental health status assessed during online conversation and the baseline questionnaire.

BEHAVIORAL

Phone follow-up/counselling service

The intervention outcomes and participants' smoking status will be followed up regularly via telephone interviews (15 - 30 minutes).

DRUG

Mailed nicotine replacement therapy (NRT)

Full course of NRT treatment (10 weeks) will be provided to all participants who are still smoking at 6-month follow-up and request, or willing to use NRT after advice from counsellors. Medications will be mailed from the smoking cessation clinics.

BEHAVIORAL

Text message

Regular messages will be sent twice per month within 3 months. These messages covers simple cessation advice and reminders for follow-ups.

OTHER

Small incentive

Positive incentive was reported to be effective in reducing smoking. Participants in the intervention group will receive HK$ 100 at 3-month follow-up. HK$ 500 will be provided to successful quitters confirmed by biochemical validation at 6 months. A total of HK$ 600 maximum will be rewarded to the participants. The amount of the incentive is comparable to other community events on smoking cessation in Hong Kong. Of note, all smokers who reported quitting, completed and passed the biochemical validation of quitting had been offered HK$ 500 in the past rounds and will also be adopted in this round.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Lok Sin Tong Benevolent Society, Kowloon

  collaborator OTHER

• The University of Hong Kong

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Man Ping Wang · The University of Hong Kong

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2025-03-18

Primary Completion

2026-12-20

Completion

2027-04-30

Countries

• Hong Kong

Study Locations