Mobile Phones and the Internet as Quitting Smoking Aids

Abstract

Due to the addictive nature of tobacco smoking, quitting is never easy. To provide support and advice for smokers wanting to quit smoking, New Zealand's Quit Group (Quit) has delivered a national toll-free Quitline service since 1999. This service is delivered with heavily government-subsidised nicotine replacement therapy (NRT, i.e. nicotine patches, gum and lozenges) as an adjunct, with the aim of increasing quitting smoking success. With the purpose of offering more choices to smokers with different needs, Quit re-designed their website in 2007 to provide an interactive web based service. The new website provides information on quitting, alongside a quit calculator, blogs and an online ordering service for subsidised NRT. The year after, Quit rolled out a cutting-edge mobile phone text messaging based service called Txt2Quit. This service provides automated text messages containing tips and support to those making a quit attempt. Both services are successful as measured by the number of new clients attracted to each (n=458 for the web community and n=317 for Txt2Quit on average per month), and their appeal to smokers who are demographically different from those using the traditional Quitline service.