Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
RAND Corporation , Santa Monica, CA, USA.
Nicotine Tob Res. 2022 Jan 1;24(1):130-134. doi: 10.1093/ntr/ntab160.
Cigarette smoking and associated high-risk behaviors are prevalent among youth experiencing homelessness (YEH), making appropriately tailored interventions targeting smoking behavior important for this group. We pilot tested a brief text-messaging intervention (TMI) as an adjunct to standard care for YEH who smoke and found promising preliminary effects of the intervention on smoking cessation. The purpose of the present study was to test the TMI's effect on the secondary outcomes of other substance use (including use of other tobacco/nicotine devices) and mental health symptoms.
A total of 77 participants completed the pilot randomized controlled trial, with 40 receiving the TMI (174 automated text messages plus a group smoking counseling session and provision of nicotine patches). They completed an assessment at baseline and another three months later that evaluated use of other tobacco/nicotine devices, alcohol, marijuana, and anxiety and depression symptoms.
We found that the TMI helped to reduce secondary substance use behaviors and mental health symptoms among the participants; mainly there were medium effects of the intervention on changes in other tobacco/nicotine use, drinking, and anxiety and depression symptoms. The intervention did not have an effect on number of marijuana use days in the past month; however, past 30-day marijuana users who received the intervention benefited by reducing the number of times they used marijuana per day.
In addition to helping reduce cigarette smoking, we found that a TMI for YEH was helpful in improving secondary outcomes, suggesting the promise of the TMI on benefiting YEH even beyond targeted smoking behavior.
This pilot study demonstrates that by targeting cigarette smoking using a text message-based intervention among youth experiencing homelessness, effects may be seen in other areas of functioning such as other substance use and mental health.
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT03874585. Registered March 14, 2019, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/record/NCT03874585.
吸烟和相关的高危行为在无家可归的青年中很普遍（YEH），因此针对吸烟行为为这一群体提供适当的干预措施非常重要。我们对一项针对吸烟的 YEH 的简短短信干预（TMI）进行了试点测试，发现该干预对戒烟有初步的效果。本研究的目的是测试 TMI 对其他物质使用（包括其他烟草/尼古丁装置的使用）和心理健康症状的次要结果的影响。
共有 77 名参与者完成了试点随机对照试验，其中 40 名接受了 TMI（174 条自动短信，外加小组吸烟咨询和尼古丁贴片提供）。他们在基线和三个月后完成了一项评估，评估了其他烟草/尼古丁装置、酒精、大麻的使用情况，以及焦虑和抑郁症状。
我们发现 TMI 有助于减少参与者的次要物质使用行为和心理健康症状；主要是干预对其他烟草/尼古丁使用、饮酒和焦虑抑郁症状的变化有中等效果。干预对过去一个月大麻使用天数没有影响；然而，接受干预的过去 30 天内使用大麻的人受益于减少每天使用大麻的次数。
除了帮助减少吸烟外，我们还发现，针对无家可归青年的 TMI 有助于改善次要结果，这表明 TMI 有望使无家可归青年受益，甚至超越目标吸烟行为。
这项试点研究表明，通过在无家可归的青年中使用基于短信的干预措施来针对吸烟行为，可能会在其他功能领域（如其他物质使用和心理健康）看到效果。
ClinicalTrials.gov 标识符 NCT03874585。于 2019 年 3 月 14 日注册，https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/record/NCT03874585。
