Looming Vulnerability and Smoking Cessation Attempts

NCT02522156 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: American_University
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 279
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Almost one-fifth of US adults are current cigarette smokers. To make further progress in lowering prevalence, it would help to increase the proportion of smokers attempting to quit. This application tests a novel approach to motivating smokers to quit, based on an empirically supported theory of anxiety. The approach uses guided imagery to increase smokers' sense of urgency about preventing the negative health consequences of smoking.

Conditions

Smoking Cessation

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Quit attempt

  yes/no, whether or not the participant made a 24-hour (or longer) quit attempt between the date of the main experiment and the date of the 4-week follow-up assessment.

  4-week follow-up

Secondary Outcomes (5)

• Abstinence

  4-week follow-up

• Smoking rate

  4-week follow-up

• Contemplation of quitting

  4-week follow-up

• self-efficacy (Smoking Self-Efficacy Questionnaire; SSEQ)

  4-week follow-up

• outcome expectancies (Smoking Consequences Questionnaire-Adult; SCQ-A)

  4-week follow-up

Study Arms (2)

Looming Vulnerability Induction

EXPERIMENTAL

Four audiotape-guided imagery exercises, each lasting about 3 minutes: * Conveyor Belt: Places the participants in a dimly-lit factory, in which they are being carried along faster and faster on a conveyor belt as they smoke. This conveyor belt is described as ultimately leading to the diagnosis of lung cancer. * Office Building: Places participants in an office all alone, watching calendar pages fly off the wall. As participants smoke and time progresses, participants are meant to feel their lungs withering away and their heart beat becoming weaker and weaker. * Train Tracks: Set in the open plains on top of a set of railroad tracks. As participants smoke, a train heading directly towards them gains speed. * Clock Ticking: In this timing exercise, participants are instructed to imagine terrible health consequences related to smoking coming closer and closer to them as they smoke. Participants are asked to keep track of time for a period of three minutes.

Behavioral: Looming Vulnerability Induction

Control

PLACEBO COMPARATOR

Four audiotape-guided imagery exercises, as follows: * Escalator (parallel to "conveyor belt" above): Takes place in an empty mall in the morning. The participants imagine they are slowly and steadily being carried by the escalator until they reach the top. * Metro (parallel to "office building"): Involves riding public transportation while reading a magazine, steadily flipping the pages. * Driving (parallel to "Train Tracks"): Involves driving a car. The car in this case moves steadily with no traffic hindrances that would cause a reduction of speed. * Human Clock (parallel to "Clock Ticking"): Another timing exercise. In this case, the participants receive instruction to pretend they are a human clock.

Behavioral: Control

Interventions

Looming Vulnerability Induction BEHAVIORAL

guided imagery aimed at inducing smoking cessation attempts. See description of the looming vulnerability arm.

Looming Vulnerability Induction

Control BEHAVIORAL

Neutral guided imagery scenarios making no reference to smoking.

Control

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Adults (age 18 or older).
• Daily cigarette smokers (at least 10 cigarettes per day).
• Fluent in English. -

You may not qualify if:

• planning to leave the Washington, DC area in the next month.
• Total score \> 5 on the Modified Mini Screen measure of risk for anxiety or mood disorders
• Score \> 0 on the suicidality item (#4) of Modified Mini Screen -

Sponsors & Collaborators

• American University: lead

Study Sites (1)

American University

Washington D.C., District of Columbia, 20016-8062, United States

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Smoking Cessation

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Health Behavior; Behavior

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: TREATMENT
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Professor of Psychology

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: August 10, 2015
• First Posted: August 13, 2015
• Study Start: February 1, 2016
• Primary Completion: July 1, 2019
• Study Completion: December 1, 2019
• Last Updated: January 29, 2020

Record last verified: 2020-01

Locations

US (1)