Efficacy of a Short-bout Handgrip Exercise Intervention for Smoking Cessation: a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial

Detailed Summary

Smoking is highly addictive and quitting is difficult. Relapse is common because of withdrawal symptoms such as craving, headache, mood change and irritation. In addition to pharmacotherapy, exercise can acutely reduce craving, withdrawal symptoms and negative affect in regular smokers. Exercise effectively reduces negative affect and attentional bias towards smoking, and hence might relieve craving.Instead of long duration (30+ minutes) exercise, short-bout exercise is more easily adhered to in daily living and achieves similar health gain as long-bout exercise.Handgrip, which enhances training of hand-griping strength, is a common short-bout exercise tool used for lowering blood and arterial pressure.Therefore, this exercise tool might also raise smokers' interest to initiate this simple and effective exercise for quit attempt. This RCT study was proposed by using short-bout exercise (intervention) and healthy diet (control ) for smoking cessation, targeting adult clients who enrolled in smoking cessation service of ICSC, smoke 10 cigarettes or more a day when they initially receive the treatment from ICSC, can access to Internet by using smart phone and interested in participating in an exercise/diet program for smoking cessation. All the participants will be randomized the subjects to one of the RCT groups by using sequentially numbered, opaque sealed envelope method. Participants from both groups will be helped to install a phone application (App) in their smartphone which can send reminders of doing exercise or healthy diet. Also, the participants will enter their smoking and craving data by the App by answering the automatic pooped daily questionnaire. Telephone follow-up will be conducted at 2,6 and 12 months.

Study Details

Timeline

Interventions