# An Age-Progression Intervention for Smoking Cessation: A Pilot Study Investigating the Influence of Two Sets of Instructions on Intervention Efficacy

## TL;DR

A pilot study found that reassuring instructions during age-progression interventions increased smoking cessation intentions and attempts compared to neutral or control conditions.

## Contribution

This study is the first to investigate how different instruction types affect the efficacy of age-progression interventions for smoking cessation.

## Key findings

- Reassuring instructions led to higher quitting intentions at 3 months compared to the control group.
- Intervention groups had more quit attempts (58%) than the control group (15%) at 1 month post-intervention.

## Abstract

Research on age-progression facial morphing interventions for smoking cessation has not investigated the effect of different instructions for intervention delivery. The objective of this pilot study was to investigate the influence of two instruction types used to deliver the intervention on efficacy of the intervention.

Women were recruited and randomly allocated to an age-progression intervention session with (i) neutral instructions; (ii) instructions designed to reassure; or (iii) a condition that controlled for participant engagement (“control”). The conditions were delivered in a one-time procedure, after which primary (quitting intentions) and secondary (cigarettes/week, quit attempts) outcomes were measured immediately post-intervention, and at 1 and 3 months.

Seventy-two women (M = 25.7; SD = 0.9) were recruited and randomly allocated to condition (Neutral n = 27, Reassuring n = 22, Control n = 23). Quitting intentions were higher in the Reassuring versus Control arm (3 months post-intervention, F = 4.37, p = 0.016, 95% CI [0.231, 2.539], eta2 = 0.11); quit attempts were greater in the two intervention arms (58%) versus Control (1-month post-intervention, 15%) (χ2 = 9.83, p < 0.05, OR 1.00 [0.28, 3.63]).

Findings highlight the importance of optimising instructions to enhance intervention efficacy.

clinicaltrials.gov Record: NCT03749382.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12529-024-10285-3.