Text messages could be key to helping TB patients quit smoking, according to study

Tuberculosis (TB) patients who smoke will recover far more quickly if they can quit - and help could come from their mobile phones, according to new research.

As part of the trial, patients were sent encouraging and supportive text messages to see if it would help them to quit smoking more quickly.

Results

The results, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), revealed that nearly three times the number of participants who received text messages quit smoking for six months, compared to participants receiving the standard printed information.

The study, part of the RESPIRE project, was led by Professor Kamran Siddiqi, a Professor of Public Health at Hull York Medical School and Ai Keow Lim, from the University of Edinburgh.

Professor Siddiqi said: “We know that people who quit smoking can recover from TB faster, so we tested whether sending encouraging and supportive text messages could help patients quit more quickly than the usual written advice.”

Access

Professor Siddiqi explained that the study, which took place in Bangladesh and Pakistan, included 1,080 people with access to a mobile phone who had TB.

“Of the 1,080 participants, 720 received text messages to encourage quitting daily for two months, then monthly for four months," said Professor Siddiqi. The remaining 360 participants received standard printed information about quitting smoking.

The results are impressive, with a huge difference in quitting success rates between the groups.

“We found that more than 41% of the text-message group quit smoking for six months, compared to only just over 15% of the usual-care group,” he said. “Also, the text-message groups had lower death rates, 3.5%, than the usual-care group which recorded a 7.5% death rate.”

Effective

Professor Siddiqi believes the text-message method is both an effective and practical way to help people give up smoking when they need to most - ie when they’re being treated for TB.

And he says it could be a particularly useful method where resources are scarce. 

“This method of patient help could be particularly useful where face-to-face smoking cessation services are non-existent. Sending mobile phone messages offers a cheap and effective way of helping people to quit in large numbers.

“The study shows that this approach not only prevents other tobacco-related conditions, including cancer and heart diseases, but also saves lives in the short-term by reducing TB-related deaths.”

Read the paper: Zahid M, Rahman F, Danaee M, et al. An mHealth (mobile health) intervention for smoking cessation in people with tuberculosis: a cluster randomized clinical trial. JAMA. Published online December 22, 2025.

 

Media enquiries

Alistair Keely
alistair.keely@york.ac.uk

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Simon Reza, Unsplash.com.