'Questions About Quitting' Smoking Cessation Trial

Overview

The current study tested the effectiveness of four potentially important tailoring factors (decisional framework, self-efficacy, navigation autonomy, and proactive outreach) in the context of an online motivational intervention for smoking cessation. A fifth factor was originally planned by dropped during intervention development due to confounds with the other planned factors. Information learned from this study will inform how to best design an online interventions for smoking cessation. Participants were recruited from a large, regional U.S. health plan. Using a full factorial design to screen for important main effects and 2-way interactions, participants were randomized to receive one of 16 different experimental factor combinations and followed for one year to assess program impact on smokers' use of empirically-validated cessation treatment and abstinence.

The current study is a factorial screening experiment, consistent with the Multiphase Optimization Strategy. Participants were randomly assigned to one of 16 different combinations of the 4 experimental factors. Each factor was explored on 2 contrasting levels. Each contrasting factor level was then compared to the other, resulting in 4 analytic arms. Within each arm, all participants (n = 1865) were analyzed to determine the relative effect of each contrasting factor level on the primary and secondary outcomes of interest.

Conditions