Georgia State University School of Public Health researchers recently announced a funded NIH R01 Study, “Mindfulness-based Smoking Cessation Enhanced with Mobile Technology” for low-income smokers.

Background: Mindfulness training shows promise for improving smoking cessation and lapse recovery, and between-session mHealth messages could enhance treatment engagement and effectiveness. Personalized, in-the-moment text messaging support could be particularly useful for low-income smokers with fewer smoking cessation resources.

Objective: This pilot study examined feasibility of a text messaging program (“iQuit Mindfully”) as an adjunct to in-person Mindfulness-Based Addiction Treatment (MBAT) for smoking cessation.

Conclusions: Text messaging appears to be a feasible and acceptable modality for supporting mindfulness-based smoking cessation treatment. The availability of 24/7 text messaging might be particularly helpful for low-income smokers, who have access to fewer cessation resources and experience significant day-to-day barriers to quitting.

JMIR mHealth and uHealth:  Spears, C. A., Abroms, L., Glass, C. R., Hedeker, D., Eriksen, M. P., Cottrell-Daniels, C., Tran, B. Q., & Wetter, D. W. (in press). Mindfulness-based smoking cessation enhanced with mobile technology (iQuit Mindfully): Pilot randomized controlled trial.