A Mobile Social Network-based Smoking Cessation Intervention for Chinese Male Smokers: Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial

Abstract

Introduction: Around two million Chinese people die annually from tobacco-related diseases, mostly men; yet fewer than 8% of Chinese smokers ever receive any smoking cessation advice or support. Mobile phone-based text-messaging smoking cessation interventions are proven cost-effective tools for supporting smokers to quit in some countries. China is the largest and fastest-growing smartphone market in the world with the wide use of a social network platform, WeChat (over 1.2 billion monthly active users). This thesis outlines the development and evaluation of a novel smoking cessation programme built within WeChat that targets Chinese male smokers...