A new smartphone app with artificial intelligence (AI) has been developed to help people quit smoking by providing individual interventions during trigger situations. Researchers at the University of East Anglia in England have created the Quit Sense app, which uses AI to detect trigger situations and prevent relapses. The app is based on the principle of Just-In-Time Adaptive Interventions (JITAI), which are individual measures that help in trigger situations. JITAI uses real-time data to draw conclusions about a person’s social, emotional, and physical state, which are then analyzed by AI to initiate targeted interventions.
To use the Quit Sense app, users must familiarize the AI with their individual smoking patterns by recording each cigarette they smoke and providing information about their mood and environment. The app also records the user’s location using GPS, allowing the AI to quickly recognize places and situations that could trigger smoking. When users express a desire to quit smoking, the app warns them of potential triggers and provides supportive messages and context-specific questions to help them cope with the situation.
A controlled study was conducted with 209 smokers who were recruited through social media. All participants were given a link to a smoking cessation project by the British National Health Service (NHS), and half of them were given access to the Quit Sense app. After six weeks and six months, participants were asked to share their experiences, and those who reported quitting smoking were asked to provide a saliva sample to confirm their abstinence. The results showed that the number of people who quit smoking was four times higher among those who had access to the Quit Sense app compared to those who only relied on the NHS support.
The individualized and timely intervention provided by the Quit Sense app was found to be effective in helping people quit smoking. The success of this app demonstrates the potential of smartphone technology and machine learning in medical and psychological interventions. By helping people learn and cope with trigger situations, the Quit Sense app can increase the success rate of smoking cessation.
