Interactive mobile system for smoking cessation

Tobacco use remains the single largest preventable cause of death and disease in the United States. We developed an interactive mobile system to facilitate smoking cessation by identifying which stage of change the patient was currently in and creating a custom intervention and cessation action plan based upon their feedback and experience. It is designed to follow the patient through their smoking cessation experience and adapt to their changing attitudes over time. We piloted this program with 49 current smokers hospitalized at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The mobile smoking cessation system was generally well received by hospitalized patients. Improvement in attitudes and stage of change were noticed between pretest and posttest, suggesting an ability to help change patient's attitudes towards smoking and motivate them to quit. Providing real time decision support and tailoring the content shown to the patients to their personal profile can be a viable means in smoking cessation.