A feasibility study shows that a smartwatch app using motion sensors to detect smoking lapses could help users quit by delivering ‘just-in-time’ relapse prevention messages.
RT’s Three Key Takeaways:
- Smartwatch Smoking Cessation Feasibility: A University of Bristol-led feasibility study demonstrated that a custom smartwatch app using motion sensors to detect smoking lapses is both feasible and acceptable for most participants (66%).
- Real-Time Relapse Prevention: The smartwatch app delivers just-in-time messages when smoking movements are detected, increasing users’ awareness of their behavior and helping them stay motivated to quit.
- Potential for Broader Adoption: As an intervention that runs entirely on a smartwatch without requiring a smartphone, the study highlights the potential for wearable technology to support smoking cessation.
According to a new University of Bristol-led study, smartwatches could help people give up smoking.
The researchers tested a smartwatch fitted with a custom app that used the smartwatch’s in-built motion sensors to detect typical smoking movements. The results, published in JMIR Formative Research, showed the technology has the potential to help over two-thirds of trial participants quit the habit.
Smoking is the primary cause of preventable illness and premature death, harming nearly every organ of the body and reducing both quality of life and life expectancy. However, quitting is notoriously difficult, and many people try all sorts of ways to stop smoking, with limited success.
A Just-in-Time Intervention to Aid Cessation Efforts
In this new feasibility study, researchers developed software that uses smartwatch motion sensors to identify the typical hand movements of cigarette smoking to help detect a smoking lapse. If the app detects the person is smoking, the smartwatch delivers a relapse prevention message, just at the moment it is needed, to help with their quit attempt.
Researchers tested the intervention on 18 people interested in quitting smoking who wore a normal Android smartwatch loaded with the custom app for two weeks.
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Participants reported that the smartwatch intervention increased their awareness of smoking, which helped with some of the more automatic aspects of smoking behavior and made them think about what they were doing, motivating them to quit.
Positive Feedback from Participants
Researchers found that a smoking relapse prevention intervention and the use of a smartwatch as a platform to host a just-in-time behavior change intervention are both feasible and acceptable to the majority of participants (12 out of 18, 66%) as a relapse prevention intervention.
The researchers believe this is the first just-in-time intervention for preventing smoking relapse that runs entirely on a smartwatch, so it doesn’t need to be paired with a smartphone.
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“For those who are trying to give up, an initial lapse is a vulnerable moment, and risks leading to a full relapse to smoking. People like smartwatches. They like the idea of it delivering a message at the point that they smoke. Therefore, if we can identify this point of lapse, and deliver an intervention precisely at that point, we have an opportunity to improve the success of the quit attempt,” says Chris Stone, senior research associate in wearable technology application development in Bristol’s Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group and Integrative Cancer Epidemiology Programme, in a release.
“In carrying out this project, we have aimed to harness the latest thinking in intervention design and deliver it in a convenient wearable package with minimal burden to the user and maximum engagement with behavior change and, in doing so, make a difference to people’s lives.”
Future Research and Broader Implications
Alizée Froguel, Cancer Research UK’s Prevention Policy Manager, adds in a release, “Smoking is the biggest cause of cancer in the UK, and stopping completely is the best thing you can do for your health. This study shows that smartwatches could be a useful method to help people quit smoking, but more research is needed to understand how effective they are.
“There are many tools available to help people quit, and getting support from your free local stop smoking service will give you the best chance of stopping successfully. To help create a smoke-free future, the UK government must ensure cessation services are sustainably funded and accessible for all.”
The research team recommends a longer-term effectiveness trial be carried out as the next step. This work is part of the Smoking Cessation theme of the Cancer Research UK-funded Integrative Cancer Epidemiology Programme.
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