THE FEASIBILITY OF IMPLEMENTING TEXT MESSAGING SYSTEM TO SUPPORT SMOKING CESSATION FOR SMOKERS IN HANOI

Abstract

The study was carried out to assess the feasibility of implementing text messaging system to support smoking cessation smokers in Hanoi. This was a pilot study done on 40 smokers in Hanoi. The participants received short message service texting within 6 weeks to get smoking cessation support. The study was an intervention one which compared the participants’ smoking before and after the intervention done. The participants were interviewed directly with a questionnaire that includes the following contents: suitability of number/ content of messages, frequency/ time of sending messages, use of received messages, interaction with the program, satisfaction with the messaging system, and change in smoking behavior. The results showed that there were 82.5% reading/using text messages daily, 82.5% interacted with program – by 2-way text messaging; 90% of the participants found the messages useful; 97.7% were satisfied with the program. The researched subjects commented that the program was easy to use. 20% of the participants quit smoking/ waterpipe tobacco completely; 15% quit smoking but still smoke waterpipe tobacco. Smoking behavior changed positively compared to the initial survey; the statistical significance included the number of cigarettes/waterpipe tobaccos smoked a day, the status of smoking cigarettes/waterpipe tobacco (p <0.001). The rate of research subjects who tried to stop smoking cigarettes/pipe tobacco in 4 weeks was quite high (52.5% before the intervention and 25% after the intervention). This study provided evidence of the feasibility of the use of a text messaging program to provide intervention supports in smoking cessation for Vietnamese people.