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WHO supports the harnessing of mobile technologies to improve access to smoking cessation services. As such, this study evaluated the effectiveness of smoking cessation services provided by community pharmacists using PharmQuit compared with standard care. The study was a prospective, multicenter, randomized controlled trial that included 156 participants who were 18 years or older and smoked at least one cigarette daily for a month, were ready to quit, willing to participate, and had a smartphone. The study was performed at seven community pharmacies in three provinces in Thailand. Participants were allocated to the intervention (n = 78) and control groups (n = 78). Both groups received the usual smoking cessation services with pharmacotherapy and counseling from community pharmacists for 6 months. The intervention group received PharmQuit as an additional service. Both groups were scheduled for follow-up visits on days 7, 14, 30, 60, 120, and 180. The primary outcome was continuous abstinence rate on day 180. The secondary outcomes included 7-day point abstinence rate, number of cigarettes smoked per day, exhaled carbon monoxide levels, adherence rate to the program, and satisfaction with PharmQuit. An analysis using the intent-to-treat principle was performed. Smoking cessation rates and the number of cigarettes smoked per day were significantly higher during the follow-up visits in both groups (p < 0.05). However, there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups. The adherence rate to the smoking cessation program was higher in the intervention group than in the control group (74 days vs. 60 days, p > 0.05). The results showed the benefits of the contribution of community pharmacists. Although the inclusion of PharmQuit did not yield better results than pharmacists’ counselling alone, it may help obtain better adherence to smoking cessation programs. Trial registration: Thai Clinical Trials Registry: TCTR20200925004 on September 25, 2020 –retrospectively registered, http://www.clinicaltrials.in.th/index.php?tp=regtrials&menu=trialsearch&smenu=fulltext&task=search&task2=view1&id=6841.

No abstract

Smoking is a major cause of worldwide morbidity and mortality.  This study describes the development of an interactive app, PharmQuit, based on a user experience framework in collaboration with pharmacist counseling. There were three phases in the development process. First, clinical practice guidelines were researched together with discussions with experienced counsellors. Second, a diagram was developed to support two-way communication between smokers and pharmacists. Third, user testing was done by conducting a satisfaction survey and a one-month trial.  The development of PharmQuit was based on five elements: strategy, scope, structure, skeleton, and surface. The first element was strategy. The aim of the app was to encourage smokers to quit smoking, stay with the program, and stay in contact with a community pharmacist. The second element, scope, included the features of daily encouragement, health status tracking, and community connection. The third element, structure, explained the connections between features. The fourth element, skeleton, showed the arrangement of buttons and fields that made up seven pages of the app. The last element, surface, covered color and cartoon figures. PharmQuit was linked to the web system for clinical information. The highest satisfaction scores were Design (4.3+0.9), Beauty (4.1+1.0), and Objective (4.1+0.9). The one-month trial for PharmQuit showed an average access of 21 times with a continuous abstinence rate of 31 percent. In conclusion, PharmQuit was developed with the needs of smokers and pharmacists in mind. The features and users’ testing showed that the app was able to properly function corresponding to its objectives and design.

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