“The problem is that when you try to avoid what you feel and what you’re thinking, you make more of what you are trying to avoid,” said Jonathan Bricker, lead author of the new study. And Professor Professor Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Program at the Seattle Cancer Research Center.
That approach to practical change may be beneficial for more than one in 10 Americans who smoke.
According to Dr. Panagis Galliasatos, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, one of the drawbacks of this tech-driven approach is that it requires people to try to stop having smartphones and working phone lines. Volunteer spokesperson for the American Lung Association. He was not involved in the study.
“I need primary care physicians to be aware of the availability of this type of product,” he said. However, this should be as an assistant (for medical care), not as a replacement. “
He noted that most of his patients are black, and the average annual income for people in the surrounding community is about 15,000. Galliasotos directs the tobacco treatment center at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.
However, tobacco smoking has broken records, with 34 million Americans still smoking, according to the Smoking Termination: Surgeon General report launched this year.
In addition to proving that an acceptance-based plan can help people quit smoking in the long run, Bricker and his team wanted to prove that tracking your progress on a digital app was practically useful. About 490 smoking cessation apps can be downloaded, according to data from SensorTower.com.
However, the data are really limited in how effective they really are. So Bricker and his team took a closer look.
They have developed a randomized clinical trial comparing smokers using two different applications designed to help people break a habit.
Researchers have found that the app, which helped people accept rather than avoid cravings, was 50% more effective.
Facing your triggers
The study team registered 2,415 adult cigarette smokers, dividing them into two groups. In the first group, participants used Iconcute, an application that researchers developed based on acceptance and commitment therapies that teach acceptance of smoking triggers. The goal of this approach is to quit smoking by appealing to someone’s values, and to encourage the user to allow the desire to smoke without acting on it.
In the second group, smokers used the National Cancer Institute QuitGuide, an app designed to help people quit smoking by avoiding the triggers that lead people to cigarettes. NCI’s application to the U.S. for smoking cessation. Clinical practice is based on guidelines, which motivate people to leave with logic and reasoning.
The researchers followed up with participants several times between May 2017 and September 2018.
Those who used the IconCut app had 1.49 times more odds of quitting smoking than those who used the QuitGuide app.
After users download the IconCut app, they set a date for when they choose to quit smoking, and then follow the app’s virtual coach’s guidance, which helps them become more aware of the specific personal stresses of stimulating their tobacco cravings.
By accepting existence rather than trying to overcome cravings, the app and its underlying approach have eased the tug-of-war that many have done with a desire for cigarettes.
“You leave the rope,” Bricker said.
His team concludes that out of every 100,000 smokers who start with the Iconcut app, 28,000 will successfully quit.
“This stimulates applications as an effective way to quit smoking,” Bricker said. “Up to this point, there is not much data yet on whether the apps work.”
More than one way to quit
This new study on smoking cessation applications adds to existing research on ways to quit smoking.
Smokers who are left behind
“This study is applied to help people abandon and keep people from abandoning,” said Galiatosos of Johns Hopkins. “If you want to help people quit smoking, he doesn’t write a prescription and say it one day.”
He praised the study for using the sample’s large-sized and chronic care model, and for long-time researchers monitoring participants so that they really kicked their habit.
Galliasotos, however, explained that many of his low-income patients have difficulty using cutline services to quit smoking because they do not have a reliable and consistent phone line.
Coming from a low socioeconomic situation, many smokers do not have the resources and support that make it entirely possible to quit.
He said many of the smoking population is a health inequality.
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