23rd July 2008

Mohave County Department of Public Health, Arizona has become an early adopter of a second-generation smoking cessation text messaging service, STOMP (STop smoking Over Mobile Phone) from Healthphone Solutions.

STOMP sends smokers trying to quit a series of personalized text messages over 26 weeks. The next-generation service uses messages based on a clinically-developed program with proven medical efficacy and offers several interactive features. Clinical trials have shown that using STOMP doubled reported quit rates from 13% to 28% after six weeks.

Mohave County Department of Public Health will use STOMP in a pilot project to reach young smokers, and will enrol high school students caught smoking into the service as a form of youth diversion instead of suspending them from school. Court judges and School Resource Officers in Mohave Country will be asked to refer students to the program. The project is funded by the Arizona Department of Health Services, Bureau of Tobacco Education Prevention Program.

“Using mobile phones to stop smoking, we hope will engage the hard-to-reach and at-risk groups like young adults in a way that suits them,” says Susan Williams, Mohave County Tobacco Use Prevention Program Coordinator.

“Quitting tobacco is a very personal and uphill battle to overcome a powerful addiction. Using a text message program allows participants to receive cessation messages at their fingertips throughout the entire day when the participant needs it the most.”

“The fact that STOMP has clinical recognition was also very important to us as a public health provider,” says Williams.

Messages follow a clinically-developed 26 week program with phases for preparing to quit, followed by an intensive quitting period and maintenance. Messages include tips on quitting as well as facts about smoking and users can choose to respond to multiple choice polls. Users can send a message to the service when they are craving a cigarette or have relapsed and will receive specific support for coping with those problems. Users can designate a period each day when they will not receive texts, and STOMP will not send texts during school hours.

The service runs on the Healthphone Messaging Engine which can be tailored to a variety of scenarios and to integrate with other public health campaigns.

In New Zealand, a nationwide government-funded version of STOMP called ‘Txt2Quit’ was launched in June and Canadian telecommunications carrier TELUS plans to offer the service as an employee health benefit.

Debbi Gillotti, Chief Executive Officer of Healthphone Solutions says, “We’ve taken one of the world’s most effective smoking cessation programs and put it right into the hands of smokers. The clinically-developed program of messages and our messaging engine’s interactivity significantly increase the effectiveness of using text messaging for health interventions.

“STOMP is a great example of how technology can empower and support people to take charge of their own well-being. It offers an excellent means to reach consumers wherever and whenever the urge for smoking occurs because it leverages a device they are very familiar with – their mobile phone.”

STOMP is hosted by Healthphone and so doesn’t place additional demands on health providers’ computer resources. “Our hosting model and easy-to-use software make a proven smoking cessation program readily accessible to smokers, as well as the public health agencies who support them,” says Gillotti.

The Clinical Trials Research Unit at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, conducted a randomized-controlled trial of over 1700 STOMP users, which showed that using STOMP doubled self-reported quit rates from 13% to 28% after six weeks

The Healthphone Messaging Engine makes STOMP customizable, easy to manage, fast to deploy and can support multiple languages and timezones. It can be adapted for other patient self-care programs offered by health providers such as hypertension, CVD, diet, nutrition and rehabilitation programs.

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