Battle nicotine addiction with... text messages?

by Stevie Smith - Oct 8 2009, 15:15

If a steady procession of nicotine patches, chewing relentlessly on gum substitutes, and crying tears of gooey tar at support groups isn’t helping you to quit smoking, then perhaps you should consider kicking the filthy habit with the help of mobile phone text messages. No, seriously.

Specifically, an international study has revealed that programs designed to help people stop smoking are significantly more beneficial in terms of effectiveness when text-messaged advice and encouragement is included in their structuring.

A review of such trials carried out in Great Britain, New Zealand and Norway showed smokers could potentially double their chances of both quitting smoking within a period of six weeks and holding off the habit for up to a year when aided by the assistance of text-based support.

Reaching beyond usual approaches applied to help break the bond between smokers and cigarettes, the support programs scrutinised by the report enable people to text ‘crave’ whenever their resolve begins crumbling, at which point they are instantly contacted with advice on how to avoid a nicotine relapse.

“We know that stopping smoking can be really difficult and most people take several attempts to quit successfully,” commented University of Auckland researcher Robyn Whittaker in a Reuters report. “It is important to be able to offer lots of different options for extra support.”

The study’s findings, which have been published in the Cochrane Library, also found that while text-based support certainly boosted the habit-breaking chances of program participants, most were still unable to unable to kick smoking for good.

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