Social Media Support Groups for Adolescent Vaping Cessation

April 18, 2026 updated by: Pamela Ling, University of California, San Francisco
The purpose of this study is to pilot test feasibility and acceptability of the Quit the Hit Toolkit, a social media-based nicotine vaping cessation program for adolescents and young adults, adapted for use in community settings.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

This is a single-arm pilot study testing training materials for the Quit the Hit Toolkit. Community-based coaches will be recruited then receive training on the intervention, then they will recruit and lead 5-week vaping cessation groups online.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

60

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Locations

  • United States
    • California
      • San Francisco, California, United States, 94143
        • Recruiting
        • University of California, San Francisco
        • Contact:
        • Principal Investigator:
          • Pamela M Ling, MD, MPH

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  1. English literacy
  2. Age between 13-21 years (group participants) or 18+ (coaches, peer mentors)
  3. Indicate they use social media "most" (>= 4) days per week (group participants)
  4. Have vaped at least once per week in the past 30 days (90 percent of participants) (group participants)
  5. Access to a computer or mobile phone with photo capability to verify abstinence from vaping (group participants)
  6. Indicate they are considering quitting or are interested in quitting with the next 6 months or within the next 30 days (group participants)
  7. Currently reside in California, Minnesota, Oklahoma, or South Carolina

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. No English literacy
  2. Age under 13 or over 21 (group participants) or under 18 (coaches, peer mentors)
  3. Insufficient social media use (3 or fewer days per week) (group participants)
  4. Have not vaped at least once per week in past 30 days (group participants)
  5. No access to computer or mobile phone with photo capability to verify abstinence from vaping (group participants)
  6. Not considering or interested in quitting vaping in the next 30 days or 6 months (group participants)
  7. Not a resident of California, Minnesota, Oklahoma, or South Carolina

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Vaping Intervention
Individuals will receive training on how to implement the vaping intervention (Quit the Hit Toolkit) in their own community settings. These individuals will serve as coaches and will recruit and facilitate vaping support groups on Instagram, where group participants will receive up to 3 Instagram posts per day for 30 days. Group coaches will work with a Cessation Counselor, Principal Investigator, Co-Investigators and a Pediatrician on demand if additional expertise or clinical advice is needed. Group participants will be educated about signs of nicotine dependence and if they express interest in pharmacotherapy will be encouraged to access this through their personal healthcare providers. The Instagram groups will provide educational and social support, troubleshooting and advice about nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) or other forms of treatment. Groups will also include trained peer mentors to provide additional support.
Behavioral: Social Media Intervention
Social media based intervention using Instagram with up to 3 posts per day for 30 days

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Number of coaches who complete training and coach a vaping cessation group for 5 weeks
Time Frame: 5 weeks
Participants will be trained to serve as group coaches, implementing the intervention ("Quit the Hit Toolkit") to help teens and young adults stop vaping. Coaches will complete training and each will recruit approximately 10 participants for a vaping cessation group for 5 weeks. Investigators will track the number of coaches who successfully complete both training, recruit participants, and coach the groups for 5 weeks.
5 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Number of participants recruited and enrolled in the pilot study
Time Frame: From time that coaches complete training to pilot group kickoff not greater than 4 weeks
Coaches will work through their networks to recruit approximately 10 participants age 13-21 to participate in vaping cessation groups. The number of participants who qualify for the study on the study website, and the number who enroll in the study will be tracked.
From time that coaches complete training to pilot group kickoff not greater than 4 weeks
Number of participants who complete vaping cessation group over 5 weeks
Time Frame: From start of cessation groups to end of the intervention over 5 weeks.
The number of participants who remain in the vaping cessation groups and like, post, or otherwise respond to the intervention posts or texts over 5 weeks, and who complete the survey at the end of the intervention will be tracked.
From start of cessation groups to end of the intervention over 5 weeks.
Acceptability of training protocol and intervention procedures to coaches and participants measured by qualitative interviews
Time Frame: Following the end of pilot groups over about 2 weeks
All coaches, peer mentors, and participants in the pilot intervention will be invited to participate in interviews or focus groups. Study investigators will solicit feedback on acceptability of the study procedures, training, recruitment, intervention experience, payment systems, and other engagement procedures.
Following the end of pilot groups over about 2 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of California, San Francisco

Collaborators

National Cancer Institute (NCI)
HopeLab Foundation
Rescue Agency

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Pamela M Ling, MD, MPH, University of California, San Francisco

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Helpful Links

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Estimated)

April 15, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

July 31, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

August 1, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 14, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 14, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

April 20, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

April 23, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 18, 2026

Last Verified

April 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 20204627
  • R01CA292971 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

UNDECIDED

IPD Plan Description

This is limited qualitative pilot data that may not be able to be sufficiently deidentified to be ethically shared. Investigators' ability to successfully deidentify the data to protect participant privacy will dictate whether or not a de-identified dataset could be made available to other researchers.

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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