Chatbot for Online Support Groups to Treat Tobacco Addiction

Summary

Investigators will conduct a pilot RCT to test the efficacy of an intelligent chatbot to aid small, private, quit-smoking peer support groups. Participants will be randomized to an intervention arm (chatbot-enhanced support group), or a control arm (support group only). In the intervention arm (N=60), each support group will be connected to an intelligent chatbot running on a secure local server as a trained LLM (large language model). The intelligent chatbot will function as an additional member of the GroupMe support group, but a member that only responds if no human does so. In the control arm (N=60), the support groups will be connected to an automated message-posting bot running on a secure local server. This automated message-posting bot will lack the response capabilities of the intelligent chatbot. But both the intelligent chatbot and the automated message-posting bot will post a pre-written daily discussion topic to encourage participants to discuss issues known to facilitate tobacco cessation or group bonding.

Conditions

• Tobacco Dependence
• Tobacco Use Disorder

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

online quit-smoking support group with intelligent chatbot

In the intervention arm (N=60), each quit-smoking peer support group will be connected to an intelligent chatbot running on a secure local server as a trained LLM (large language model). This chatbot will monitor all posts in the group and seek to comprehend these posts using the training it has been provided. If a group member makes a post and no one responds with about 10 seconds, the chatbot will respond using one of its 25 response libraries created from knowledge bases, which contain over 1k responses in total. In effect, the intelligent chatbot will function as an additional member of the GroupMe support group, but a member that only responds if no human does so.

BEHAVIORAL

online quit-smoking support group with unintelligent bot

In the control arm (N=60), the support groups will be connected to our original automated message-posting bot running on our secure local server. This automated message-posting bot will lack the response capabilities of the intelligent chatbot; it will not respond to posts if no human group member does but, instead, remain silent. However, it will post the same daily discussion topic, and at the same time of day, as the intelligent chatbot.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of California, Irvine

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Cornelia A. Pechmann, PhD · University of California, Irvine

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

75 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2026-12-01

Primary Completion

2028-06-01

Completion

2028-06-01