Approach Bias Retraining to Augment Smoking Cessation
Completed · Not applicable · Has a placebo group
Conditions studied: Nicotine Dependence
In brief
Tobacco use is the most preventable cause of disease, disability, and death in the United States. Standard smoking cessation care (cognitive behavioral therapy and nicotine replacement therapy), is effective in approximately 20% of the cases, clearly indicating there is substantial room for improvement. Current work suggests that despite standard interventions, continued substance abuse may result from addictive behaviors governed partly through automatic processes that exert their influence outside conscious control. This is important from a treatment perspective, as we should develop treatments to target implicit processes. Among a number of promising targets for intervention, cognitive biases are important to address as they have been implicated as maintenance factors for addiction. Approach bias, defined as the automatically activated action tendency to approach smoking-related stimuli, is a relatively novel cognitive bias and has been related to failed smoking cessation. A recently developed task for approach bias assessment is the Approach Bias Retraining (ABR), a computerized joystick task increasingly used to measure automatic approach tendencies in addiction research. This clinical trial will evaluate a smoking cessation intervention that integrates standard care with approach bias retraining. Results will provide novel information regarding the potential benefits of engaging implicit cognitive biases as a means to augment traditional smoking cessation therapy. This study has the potential to help individuals attempting to quit smoking and, ultimately, provide unique information about the importance of targeting implicit processes to complement standard care.
Key facts
- Study ID
- NCT03325777
- Run by
- Jasper A. Smits
- People needed
- 96
- Starts
- 2017-11-29
- Expected to finish
- 2021-10-08
- Last updated by the study team
- 2026-06-15
Who can join
Age: 18 and older, up to 65. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.
You may qualify if…
- Male and female patients ages 18-65 capable of providing informed consent
- Willing and able to provide informed consent, attend all study visits, and comply with the protocol
- Daily smoker for at least 1 year
- Currently smoke an average of at least 5 cigarettes per day
- Report a motivation to quit smoking of at least 5 on a 10-point scale
You may not qualify if…
- A lifetime history of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, psychosis, or delusional disorders; an eating disorder in the past 6 months; organic brain syndrome, mental retardation or other cognitive dysfunction that could interfere with capacity to engage in therapy; a history of substance or alcohol abuse or dependence (other than nicotine) in the last 6 months or otherwise unable to commit to refraining from alcohol use during the acute period of study participation.
- Visual or hand-motoric impairments
- Current use of nicotine replacement therapy
- Current use of any other pharmacotherapy or psychotherapy for smoking cessation not provided by the researchers during the quit attempt
- Current use of tobacco products other than cigarettes
- Insufficient command of the English language as the treatment manual is written only in English and study staff are not fluent in other languages
Where it is running
- University of Texas at Austin — Austin, Texas, United States
Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov
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