New Ideas in Fight to Help Smokers Quit
While we already have inventions like the smokeless cigarette and nicotine gum and patches, new innovations and ideas to help smokers quite are being introduced all the time.
While all the devices containing nicotine all perform well for a boost against cravings, sometimes a little motivation can go a long way. This is the belief from The Guardian at any rate, who have reported that mobile phone text messages with motivational messages sent to smokers can double their chances of giving up for good.
The report from the newspaper came after a study commenced around Great Britain found that a six month programme of supportive texts sent directly to smokers’ phones greatly improved their chances of giving up tobacco.
The research was carried out by comparing smokers from the text messaging group to others partaking in a different kind of support programme; after 6 months it was found that those who were given text message support had a quit rate of 10.7%, still a low percentage but a significant increase when compared to the second group’s rating of 4.9%.
Measures were taken to keep the results as accurate as possible. Firstly, saliva tests were taken at every meeting to ask the smokers how well they were doing, which was done to maintain whether those claiming to not have smoked were indeed being truthful. The second measure was that those who dropped out of the study from both groups were counted as having failed to quit and having taken up smoking again.
The new innovation is still in its early stages and as such the relatively low percentage results are not seen as a bad sign from the researchers. However, if the study could be made more effective it could prove to be a very cost effective way of helping smokers quit.
The research was also only conducted against other support type programmes and not against nicotine devices.
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