{"doi":"10.1093/ntr/ntae137","title":"Behavioral Activation mHealth Application for Smoking Cessation: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Trial","abstract":"INTRODUCTION: Behavioral activation (BA) is an effective intervention for both depression and substance use disorders. Combining BA with a standard smoking cessation intervention may improve quit rates by addressing depressive symptoms, a key barrier to quitting. This study preliminarily evaluated the acceptability and efficacy of the BA-based Actify! mobile health application (mHealth app) for smoking cessation. AIMS AND METHODS: We conducted a pilot randomized controlled trial (n = 242) comparing Actify! with the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) app for smoking cessation (QuitGuide) on acceptability (user satisfaction, app openings), smoking abstinence, and mechanisms of change (BA and depressive symptoms) at 8 weeks and 6 months postrandomization. Participants were US adults recruited online who smoked daily. RESULTS: Treatment satisfaction was uniformly higher in the Actify! arm. Number of app openings was similar across arms (M = 34.3 openings over 8 weeks in both arms). Self-reported 30-day point prevalence abstinence (PPA) at 8 weeks was 12.6% for Actify! versus 7.3% for QuitGuide. Differences in 30-day PPA continued through 6 months (18.5% for Actify! vs. 12.2% for QuitGuide). Changes between baseline and 8 weeks in depressive symptoms and BA favored Actify!. Planned subgroup analyses suggested greater benefit of Actify! among participants with pretreatment mild-to-moderate depression symptom severity compared to those with no depression symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Actify! showed considerable promise as a novel mHealth treatment, as evidenced by its high usage and higher user satisfaction and quit rates than QuitGuide at both short- and long-term follow-up. The next step is to evaluate Actify! in a fully powered efficacy trial. IMPLICATIONS: Study findings demonstrate the promise of a BA-based mobile health app (Actify!) for smoking cessation as a population-level intervention that can effectively address depressive symptoms as a risk factor for worse smoking treatment outcomes. The Actify! app is the first standalone BA-based app to demonstrate potential for improved acceptability and efficacy relative to a standard care comparison app, with user satisfaction and smoking quit rates descriptively exceeding those of the NCI's QuitGuide app.","journal":"Nicotine & Tobacco Research","year":2024,"id":465683,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9583,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1297077,"name":"Edit Serfozo","orcid":"0000-0003-0087-2610","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":687518,"name":"Kelsey Baker","orcid":"0009-0008-7506-4072","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1297078,"name":"Melissa L. Gasser","orcid":"0000-0002-0477-4965","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":517278,"name":"Noreen L Watson","orcid":"0000-0002-4563-0239","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":594923,"name":"Stacey B. Daughters","orcid":"0000-0001-5075-030X","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1297079,"name":"Elisardo Becoña","orcid":"0000-0002-6639-3834","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":545539,"name":"Jennifer B. McClure","orcid":"0000-0002-2094-9147","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":545538,"name":"Jaimee L. Heffner","orcid":"0000-0001-9604-5489","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":42,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:04:50.328230Z","pmid":"38845464","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}