The Problem: Smoking Cessation & Medication Adherence
Tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of premature death and disease in Canada, contributing to conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory illness.
While effective treatments exist, medication adherence remains a significant barrier to successful smoking cessation.
Varenicline is one of the most effective approved smoking cessation medications, yet:
- Over 30% of users are non-adherence by the second week of treatment
- Lower adherence is directly associated with reduced quit success
Barriers to adherence include:
- Forgetfulness and lack of routine
- Limited support during the quit attempt
- Question or concerns about medication use and side effects
The challenge is supporting sustained adherence during a critical behavior change period.
What is the Chatbot?
The Smoking Cessation Chatbot is a digital support program designed to improve adherence to varenicline through personalized, interactive engagement.
The program combines a chatbot interface with an online portal, providing participants with tools to manage both medication adherence and smoking cessation behaviors over an 84-day treatment period.
Participants can:
- Set medication reminders and adherence goals
- Track medication intake and cigaretter use
- Set and monitor a quit date
- Ask questions about varenicline and smoking cessation
- Access ongoing support through chatbot interactions and SMS prompts
Participants also receive SMS messages to:
- Reinforce medication adherence
- Prompt engagement with the chatbot
- Support ongoing behavior tracking
The chatbot adapts to user behavior, providing tailored support based on progress, medication use, and individual needs.
Outcomes
The Smoking Cessation Chatbot is designed to:
- Improve adherence to varenicline treatment
- Providing structured reminders, educations, and interactive support during the treatment period
- Increase engagement during quit attempts
- Combining SMS prompts with chatbot interaction to support sustained behavior change
- Address individual barriers to adherence
- Enabling users to ask questions and receive tailored guidance related to medication use and side effects
- Support behavior tracking and goal-setting
- Helping participants monitor progress and reinforce adherence and cessation goals
- Deliver scalable, personalized behavioral support
- Leveraging conversational AI to provide continuous, low-barrier engagement
- Potential for scalable, cost-effective deployment
- Designed to extend across primary care, public health, and other settings to support broader tobacco cessation efforts
The Team
Developed in collaboration with:
- Dr. Nadia Minian
- Scientist, Institute for Mental Health Policy Research & INTREPID Lab (CAMH)
- Focused on improving accessibility and effectiveness of behavior change interventions, particularly in smoking cessation
- Dr. Kamna Mehra
- Research Coordinator, INTREPID Lab, CAMH
- Expertise in qualitative research and multi-project coordination
Co-Investigators: Drs. Peter Selby, Jonathan Rose, Matt Ratto, Laurie Zawertailo, Scott Veldhuizen.
Funders:
- CIHR Project Grant: Funding Reference Number: PJT 180405
- Proof of Concept Intervention Grants in Primary Prevention of Cancer of the Canadian Cancer Society and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research-Institute for Cancer Research Grant #707218