Abstract
Objective: Cigarette smoking is thought to be at least partially maintained by the attentional bias (AB) toward smoking cues that develops as a consequence of drug dependence. This study evaluated the impact of smartphone-delivered, in-home attentional bias modification (ABM) to reduce AB to smoking cues and to reduce smoking behavior and withdrawal-related symptoms when used as an adjunct to conventional smoking cessation treatment. Method: Participants (N = 246) were treatment-seeking smokers who completed up to 13 days of either ABM designed to train attention away from smoking cues, using a modified dot-probe task, or sham training, followed by 8 weeks of nicotine replacement therapy and counseling. Outcomes measured at baseline, 1-day post-ABM training, and 8 weeks post-ABM training included AB to smoking images and words using the dot-probe and smoking Stroop tasks, respectively, along with cigarettes per day, craving, and smoking abstinence. Results: We found that ABM training reduced AB to smoking stimuli on both the dot-probe task, η2p = 0.056, 90% CI [0.024, 0.097], and the smoking Stroop task, η2p = 0.017, 90% CI [0.002, 0.044], up to 8 weeks after ABM training when covarying for baseline response, but did not concurrently decrease smoking behavior or craving. Conclusions: Thirteen days of smartphone-delivered ABM training, as an adjunct to smoking cessation treatment, reduced AB to both modality-specific and cross-modality smoking cues but did not impact smoking-related behavior. While ABM can reduce AB to smoking cues across modalities, it is unclear whether it has therapeutic potential as an adjunct to conventional smoking cessation therapy.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 906-919 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Psychology of Addictive Behaviors |
Volume | 36 |
Issue number | 7 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 13 2022 |
Keywords
- Attention bias modification
- Cue reactivity
- Mhealth
- Smoking
- Smoking cessation
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Medicine (miscellaneous)
- Clinical Psychology
- Psychiatry and Mental health
MD Anderson CCSG core facilities
- Biostatistics Resource Group
- Assessment, Intervention, and Measurement