Developing a brief, immersive virtual reality scenario for smokers unmotivated to quit through user-centred design

Cigarette smoking is a leading cause of premature ill-health and death and is associated with more than 50 serious health conditions. The majority of smokers are well informed about the health consequences of smoking, but most lack motivation to quit smoking (Brose et al., 2020). Motivation to stop smoking is a key predictor of quit attempts but approximately 80-85% of smokers in England do not have an intention to stop.

There is a scarcity of individual-level interventions designed specifically for smokers unmotivated to quit. Virtual reality (VR) (a digital environment that has the potential to evoke strong and seemingly real sensory experiences) may offer a promising, immersive means of prompting quit attempts among people unmotivated to quit that would otherwise not occur. Developing, new interventions to motivate smokers to quit smoking could have a significant public health impact. Thus, the aim of this project is to support development of a digital intervention to motivate smokers to quit smoking using a theory-based framework, with a focus on addressing digital divides and exclusion.

Key research questions may include but are not limited to:
1) What are smokers' views of using VR to encourage a quit attempt?
2) What are the key content and design features that smokers would like to see in a VR intervention to increase motivation to quit?
3) What content and design features do experts in VR and theory-based smoking cessation interventions identify as critical and feasible to include in the VR scenario to increase smokers' motivation to quit?
4) What are smokers' experiences of the developed VR prototype (which will be based on the results of RQ1, RQ2, RQ3)?
5) What are the acceptable features of the VR prototype?
6) What are the key changes of the VR prototype that should be made prior to large-scale evaluation?