Smoking Cessation for Fathers of Sick Children

Summary

The project aims to develop and examine the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness of a proactive intervention model combined brief advice, nicotine replacement therapy sampling and mHealth-based individual counselling in increasing smoking abstinence for fathers of sick children.

Conditions

• Cigarette Smoking
• mHealth Intervention

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) Sampling

Participants will be advised to choose the NRT according to their preferences and daily cigarette consumption. Cigarette consumption of ≤20 daily will receive the 14mg patch or 2mg gum and participants consume \>20 cigarettes daily will receive the 21mg patch. An NRT use card (Appendix 6 draft) containing the instructions and potential side effects were given with a brief oral explanation. Full course of pharmacological treatment for 12-week are available in smoking cessation services. Participants requesting for additional or full course of NRT will be actively refer to the respective services as part of the Referral step in the AWARD model (Ask, Warn, Advise, Refer, and Do-it-again).

BEHAVIORAL

mHealth-based motivational counselling

The mHealth intervention will be delivered via the most popular instant messaging app in Hong Kong (WhatsApp). A total of 24 messages with contents including the harms of smoking and smoke exposure for children, encouragement, benefits of quitting for children, methods of quitting, dealing with craving, and measures to reduce cigarette smoke exposure at home will be provided. The messages will be scheduled in a tapering schedule that participants will receive 5 messages in the first week, then cut down to 3 messages/week for the next 4 weeks and 1 message/week for the last 7 weeks. Using a more personalized approach, the messages will be tailored to the participants' motivation, intention to quit and other quitting patterns collected at baseline. Real-time conversations could be initiated by participants themselves, triggered by regular messages, or through prompt inquires (e.g., asking about the quitting progress).

BEHAVIORAL

Brief cessation advice and self-help material

At baseline, participants will receive brief face-to-face advice on quitting smoking for the health of the children using the validated AWARD model (Ask, Warn, Advise, Refer, Do-it-again) with a print-based self-help material providing detailed information on health hazards of SHS exposure on children, methods to deal with craving and withdrawal symptoms, and measures on preventing SHS exposure for children at home.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• The University of Hong Kong

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

MALE

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2025-03-18

Primary Completion

2026-03-01

Completion

2026-04-01

Countries

• Hong Kong

Study Locations