The effectiveness of a video-led smoking cessation intervention in helping Chinese male smokers whose partners got pregnant to quit: a randomized control trial

Abstract

Background: More than one-third of males whose partners got pregnant are smokers in China. About 73% of them do not recognize the hazards of smoking to their reproductive function and to the health of pregnant women, fetus and newborns. Providing related knowledge can motivate these smokers to quit. However, the traditional methods to deliver smoking cessation information has persistently demonstrated to be not effective. There has been an increase in the use of video to enhance the information delivery. This study examined the effectiveness of a video-led intervention in helping male smokers whose partner got pregnant to quit smoking. Methods: A three-armed cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted. Male smokers whose partner got pregnant and exhaled carbon monoxide level > 4ppm were eligible for this study. A total of 1018 male smokers were recruited and randomly allocated into a video-led intervention group (n= 322) to receive four videos focusing on the smoking hazards to pregnant women, fetus and newborns via smartphones, a text message intervention group (n=323) to receive text information related to the smoking hazards to pregnant women, fetus and newborns via smartphone, and a control group (n=363) to receive a leaflet on smoking cessation. The primary outcome was self-reported 7-day point prevalence of abstinence at 6-month follow-up. The secondary outcome was biochemically validated quit rate at 6 months. Intention-to-treat analysis was employed. Results: The result of multivariate binary logistic regression analysis revealed that self-report point prevalence 7-day abstinence at 6-month follow-up in the video intervention group was significantly higher than that in the text massage intervention group (25.0% vs. 17.4%, OR=0.63, 95% CI: 0.42-0.96) and control group (25.0% vs. 15.7%, OR=0.75, 95% CI: 0.60-0.93). Significant differences were found in biochemically validated quit rate between the video intervention and text massage intervention groups (19.5% vs. 13.4%, OR=0.64, 95% CI: 0.42-0.97), and between video intervention and control groups at 6-month follow-up (19.5% vs. 9.2%, OR=0.65, 95% CI: 0.52-0.81). Conclusions: The video-led smoking cessation intervention is effective in helping male smokers whose partners got pregnant to quit smoking. Healthcare professionals can consider using this method to deliver smoking cessation information so as to help smokers in other settings to quit smoking.