Co-designing a lifestyle, stop-vaping intervention for ex-smoking, adult vapers (CLOVER study)

Recent scientific evidence suggest that e-cigarettes are an effective means of supporting people who wish to stop smoking, and there are currently over 3 million e-cigarette users (also known as vapers) in the U.K. However, the negative media attention, the contradicting policies on vaping that create

confusion to the public, and concerns about the lack of their regulation and longer-term effects have all created anxiety and worry among vapers. This has led to an all-increasing interest between them, to find support to stop-vaping. Nevertheless, no such official framework or service exist. Therefore, a new

intervention needs to be developed and implemented. We propose a co-design development study aiming to develop a stop-vaping lifestyle intervention. This will be divided into two Work Packages (WPs). Eligible participants in South Yorkshire will be at least 18-years old, exclusive vapers and former smokers and wishing to attempt to stop-vaping. We will

exclude pregnant and dual users (i.e., those both vaping and smoking). In WP1, we will be identifying what can be changed, discussing in telephone inverviews with approximately 20 vapers to identify potential intervention barriers and facilitators. In WP2, we will be co-designing the intervention. We will carry out an analysis and form an expert panel

to identify intervention components followed by a focus group with vapers to assess acceptability. More specifically, we will determine how could we address the barriers and encourage the driving forces to participation, which will have been identified in WP1 (e.g., education, persuasion). We will then hold a

workshop with experts (e.g., smoking cessation, behavioural science, intervention design) and members of our supporting panel of vapers to review the suitability of a number of the behaviour change techniques and to gain a thorough understanding of the problem and the "real world" context constraints and consider how the intervention is best-delivered. Then we will conduct a focus group,

with walkthroughs of draft intervention materials, with vapers to consider if the intervention components that we are proposing are acceptable to them. We have experience of drafting such materials to sufficient standard that they are suitable for user assessment (e.g., booklets, videos, website, text messages, app).

At the end of the study, we would have developed a stop-vaping intervention, the feasibility of which we would then test among vapers in at least two areas in the U.K.