NEW ORLEANS – Use of photo-aging software helped persuade young people to stop smoking in a small Australian study.
Oksana Burford, a lecturer and doctoral candidate in the School of Pharmacy at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, said that she and her colleagues were hoping to find a way to motivate young smokers to quit, as they are generally resistant to most messages. Previous studies have shown, however, that young people do respond to graphic imagery, she said at the annual meeting of the North American Primary Care Research Group.
Ms. Burford decided to test a software program that would show teens and young adults how they would look in their 50s and 60s if they continued to smoke. She used face-aging software – called April – which is marketed by Toronto-based Aprilage Inc.
That company was started in 1998 to help develop the software, which was created for an exhibit at the Ontario Science Center. The Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., also was very involved in developing the first version of April, and it has been used by many antismoking and substance abuse programs around the world, according to the company.
The photo-aging program is available to clinicians who want to use it in their offices, and individuals also can use the program on the web by visiting http://www.ageme.com/.
Ms. Burford conducted a randomized controlled study at eight pharmacy sites around Western Australia, targeting young smokers. About 1,500 were screened and 213 were deemed eligible for study. In the end, 160 participated – 80 in the control group and 80 in the intervention group. The participants were smokers, aged 18-30, and they had to give informed consent and be available for 6 months of telephone follow-up.
All participants were asked to complete a baseline questionnaire: 56 (70%) in the control group and 48 (60%) in the intervention group completed the form. All received a self-care guide on smoking. For the intervention group, Ms. Burford took a photo of each, downloaded it onto her laptop, and then showed them what they would look like as a smoker or a nonsmoker at age 55. They also were given the photo-aging results to have at home.
Ms. Burford and her colleagues followed up with all subjects by phone at 1, 3, and 6 months.
At 6 months, only 5 of the 80 people in the control group self-reported as nonsmokers. Only 1 of the 5 agreed to a breath test to confirm whether they had actually quit. Just 11 of the 22 in the intervention group who said they had quit agreed to the confirmatory test.
The researchers calculated a Fagerstrom score for all the participants at baseline and at 6 months. Most clinicians use a modified, six-question Fagerstrom quiz, which is a measure of physical dependence on nicotine. The higher the score, the more intense the dependence.
For the control group, 11 moved to a lower category (14%), 68 (85%) had no change, and 1 (1%) moved to a higher category. For the intervention group, 41 (51%) moved to a lower category (this was significant, with a P value of .0001), 39 (49%) had no change, and none moved to a higher group.
The researchers assumed that subjects who did not return follow-up calls continued to smoke, Ms. Burford said. Overall, one in seven smokers quit after viewing their photo-aged selves. Ms. Burford concluded that the software program is an effective motivator in getting young people to quit, but she noted some limitations of the study, including the lack of blinding for participants and researchers and the low number of breath-test verifications in the control group.
Ms. Burford reported no conflicts.
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