Researchers at the Dartmouth CTBH have received a grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to conduct a systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of a web-based motivational decision support system designed specifically for a population of smokers with severe mental illness. The study team, led by Principal Investigator Mary Brunette, MD, will conduct a 3-year randomized, controlled trial evaluating this intervention with smokers with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders recruited from two large community mental health centers. The study will be conducted in partnership with Thresholds in Chicago and the Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey.
People with psychotic disorders have high rates of smoking, low rates of quitting, and early morbidity and mortality. Motivational interventions can engage these smokers into cessation treatment, but aren’t available. Dartmouth CTBH researchers Drs. Mary Brunette and Joelle Ferron have developed a web-based motivational decision support system that has a unique, highly usable design, video hosts, and text to audio functionality. They have conducted several studies suggesting that use of this single session intervention leads to engagement in cessation treatment. This work suggests that the program is effective among people with a range of symptoms, cognitive ability, psychiatric diagnoses and racial/ethnic identification.
Dr. Brunette recently received an R01 grant from the National Cancer Institute to conduct a three-year randomized controlled trial that will assess the effectiveness of this novel, single session, web-based intervention. The study will recruit smokers with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders from two large community mental health centers. Tim Devitt, PhD, is a Co-Investigator who will lead the research team to recruit participants at Thresholds in Chicago. Jill Williams, MD, is a Co-Investigator at Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School who will lead the research team to recruit participants in New Jersey.
If this study shows that the decision support system is effective, this simple website will be able to link a large, previously unengaged group of smokers (those with psychotic disorders) into treatment and will become a key component of a comprehensive strategy to address the persistent high rates of smoking in this group. Further, the simplicity of the program design will be easily translated to use by other high prevalence populations, such as impoverished smokers served by Federally Qualified Health Centers, allowing expansion of this motivational program to engage other hard-to-reach smokers into treatment.