E-cigarette UseNCT07624292
An Online Intervention to Reduce E-cigarette Use and Cigarette Smoking Risk in Adolescents
A study testing Virtual Intervention for Behavioral Empowerment (VIBE) in people with E-cigarette Use and Cigarette Smoking Risk, run by University of Southern California.
Trial summary
The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if a brief digital intervention can reduce e-cigarette use and prevent cigarette smoking initiation in teenagers ages 12-17. The main questions it aims to answer are: Compared to the control condition, does the intervention reduce e-cigarette use frequency in teenagers?… Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 12 to 17 years
- Conditions the study is for
- E-cigarette Use, Cigarette Smoking Risk
- What is being tested?
- Virtual Intervention for Behavioral Empowerment (VIBE)
- Could I receive a placebo?
- No, everyone receives an active treatment
- How many people
- 150 participants
- Where
- No sites listed yet
- Study dates
- 1 Jul 2026to 30 Mar 2027
- Phase
- Interventional
- Are there results?
- Not yet: the study is under way
Key requirements
Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.
- Ages 12 to 17 years
- All sexes
- No healthy volunteers
- Child
Who may be able to join
- be between the ages of 12 to 17
- be able to read English
- be a current resident of California
- report vaping at least one day per week in the past month
- report no history of cigarette use at screening and baseline
- have access to a computer or mobile device with internet access
Who cannot join
- currently receiving nicotine cessation services
Trial locations and contacts
No sites are listed yet. Contact the study team or a site near you to ask about taking part.
About this study
Official title: An Online Intervention to Reduce E-cigarette Use and Potential for Cigarette Smoking in Adolescents
The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if a brief digital intervention can reduce e-cigarette use and prevent cigarette smoking initiation in teenagers ages 12-17. The main questions it aims to answer are:
- Compared to the control condition, does the intervention reduce e-cigarette use frequency in teenagers?
- Compared to the control condition, does the intervention reduce risk to start smoking cigarettes in teenagers? Researchers will compare the digital intervention to see if it leads to greater reductions in e-cigarette use and smoking risk than a waitlist control condition.
Participants will complete 5 brief online surveys across 12 weeks, and some will be selected to do a post-intervention virtual interview. In this interview, participants will be asked to share their opinions about the intervention and identify areas that need refinement.
- Conditions
- E-cigarette Use, Cigarette Smoking Risk
- Being tested
- Virtual Intervention for Behavioral Empowerment (VIBE)
- Keywords
- E-cigarette, Tobacco, Nicotine addiction, mHealth
- Medical subject headings
- Vaping, Tobacco Use Disorder
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
Virtual Intervention for Behavioral Empowerment (VIBE)Other
The intervention contains Personalized Normative Feedback (PNF), motivational interviewing (MI), and education about vaping and smoking harms. The program begins with the MI-based portion, which includes exploration of their experienced health and personal consequences of vaping and potential reasons for and motivation for shifting vaping behaviors (e.g., to save money, to be free from addiction). Second, the education portion involves presentation of the actual harms posed by e-cigarettes to clarify any misperceptions of the negative effects of vaping and nicotine exposure in teens. Next, users are presented with the PNF portion. In the PNF portion, participants receive feedback about their perceptions of peer vaping by presenting their typical behavior/attitude alongside their perceptions of others' behavior/attitude alongside the actual norm of the behavior/attitude. Lastly, strategies recommended for nicotine cessation are presented.
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| Digital vaping intervention | Experimental | Virtual Intervention for Behavioral Empowerment (VIBE) is a one-time 30-minute online intervention that incorporates Personalized Normative Feedback (PNF) for vaping and smoking, motivational enhancement to encourage healthy behavior change, and vaping and smoking-related harms education. Lastly, strategies recommended for nicotine cessation are presented. This intervention can be completed in one sitting or split into multiple sessions and is delivered via an interactive website. Receives: Other: Virtual Intervention for Behavioral Empowerment (VIBE) |
| Waitlist control | No intervention | Those in the control arm will be waitlisted and given the option to access VIBE (the intervention) at the end of study. |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Days vaped in the past 7 days
Participants will report the number of days they vaped in the past 7 days.
Measured: Past 7 day vaping measured at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks post-randomization.
Times vape is picked up per day
Participants will report the number of times they picked up their device to vape per day in the past 7 days.
Measured: Past 7 day vaping measured at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks post-randomization.
Smoking Susceptibility
Smoking susceptibility will be assessed with the 4-item Expanded Susceptibility to Smoking Index, with the following responses: Definitely not, Probably not, Probably yes, and Definitely yes. This is a binary outcome. If a respondent answers "definitely not" to all four questions, they are categorized as not susceptible. Any other response on any item flags the respondent as susceptible.
Measured: Past 7 day smoking susceptibility measured at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks post-randomization.
Secondary outcomes (7)
Vaping Quit Attempts
Quit attempts will be measured with questions asking for the number of quit attempts lasting at least 1 day since the last assessment.
Measured: Vaping quit attempts in the past 7 days assessed at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks.
Vaping Descriptive Normative Perceptions
Participants will report their beliefs regarding the percentage of teens who vaped, number of days individuals their age vaped, the number of times others their age picked up their vaping device per day in the past 30 days,
Measured: Vaping normative perceptions assessed at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks.
Vaping Injunctive Normative Perceptions
Participants will report how much they believe others their age approve (or disapprove) of vaping using a 5-point Likert scale (responses options: Strongly disapprove to Strongly approve).
Measured: Vaping normative perceptions assessed at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks.
Smoking Descriptive Normative Perceptions
Participants will report their beliefs about the percentage of teens who have smoked, the number of days others their age smoked in the past 30 days, and the quantity of cigarettes others their age smoked per day in the past 30 days.
Measured: Smoking normative perceptions assessed at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks.
Smoking Injunctive Normative Perceptions
Participants will report how much they believe others their age approve (or disapprove) of cigarette smoking using a 5-point Likert scale (responses options: Strongly disapprove to Strongly approve).
Measured: Smoking normative perceptions assessed at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks.
Quitting vaping self-efficacy
Self-efficacy will be assessed by 2 adapted items that originally assessed self-efficacy to quit smoking. Participants rate their confidence about quitting vaping "someday" and "in the next 6 months."
Measured: Self-efficacy in the past 7 days assessed at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks.
Motivation to Quit Vaping
Motivation will be assessed by asking participants whether they were seriously thinking about quitting vaping with responses ranging from 1 = No, I am not thinking about quitting to 5 = Yes, I want to quit during the next 30 days.
Measured: Motivation to quit in the past 7 days assessed at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks.
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted3 Jun 2026
- Study start1 Jul 2026 (estimated)
- Primary completion30 Mar 2027 (estimated)
- Study completion30 Mar 2027 (estimated)
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Other trials for E-cigarette UseStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- What the trial phases meanHow a treatment moves from first tests in people to approval.
More details
For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.
Study design
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase N/A
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Parallel groups
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Enrolment
- 150 participants (estimated)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- University of Southern California
- Sponsor type
- University, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- Tobacco Related Disease Research Program
- Responsible party
- Principal investigator, Denise Tran, University of Southern California
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT07624292
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- T35IP9813
- Status last verified
- May 2026
- First submitted
- 21 May 2026
- Last updated
- 3 Jun 2026
- Results posted
- No
- Data monitoring committee
- Yes
- FDA-regulated drug
- No
- FDA-regulated device
- No
- Individual data sharing
- Yes: Individual participant data that underlie the results reported in this study, after de-identification, will be shared. The Study Protocol and Statistical Analysis Plan will also be available. Data will be available beginning 9 months and ending 36 months following article publication to researchers who provide a methodologically sound proposal to achieve the aims in the approved proposal. Proposals must be approved by the Principal Investigator. Please submit requests and usage plans to deniset@usc.edu.
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 3 Jun 2026. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- An Online Intervention to Reduce E-cigarette Use and Potential for Cigarette Smoking in Adolescents
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT07624292
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- T35IP9813
- Conditions
- E-cigarette Use, Cigarette Smoking Risk
- Keywords
- E-cigarette, Tobacco, Nicotine addiction, mHealth
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- Not yet recruiting
- Enrolment
- 150 participants (estimated)
- Lead sponsor
- University of Southern CaliforniaUniversity, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- Tobacco Related Disease Research Program
- Study start
- 1 Jul 2026 (estimated)
- Primary completion
- 30 Mar 2027 (estimated)
- Study completion
- 30 Mar 2027 (estimated)
- First posted
- 3 Jun 2026 (actual)
- Results
- Not posted in the source record
Clinical summary
The research question as the sponsor registered it. This describes what the study plans to test, not what it found.
The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if a brief digital intervention can reduce e-cigarette use and prevent cigarette smoking initiation in teenagers ages 12-17. The main questions it aims to answer are:
- Compared to the control condition, does the intervention reduce e-cigarette use frequency in teenagers?
- Compared to the control condition, does the intervention reduce risk to start smoking cigarettes in teenagers? Researchers will compare the digital intervention to see if it leads to greater reductions in e-cigarette use and smoking risk than a waitlist control condition.
Participants will complete 5 brief online surveys across 12 weeks, and some will be selected to do a post-intervention virtual interview. In this interview, participants will be asked to share their opinions about the intervention and identify areas that need refinement.
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Parallel groups
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Number of arms
- 2
| Arm | Type | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| Digital vaping intervention | Experimental | Other: Virtual Intervention for Behavioral Empowerment (VIBE)Virtual Intervention for Behavioral Empowerment (VIBE) is a one-time 30-minute online intervention that incorporates Personalized Normative Feedback (PNF) for vaping and smoking, motivational enhancement to encourage healthy behavior change, and vaping and smoking-related harms education. Lastly, strategies recommended for nicotine cessation are presented. This intervention can be completed in one sitting or split into multiple sessions and is delivered via an interactive website. |
| Waitlist control | No intervention | –Those in the control arm will be waitlisted and given the option to access VIBE (the intervention) at the end of study. |
Who may qualify
- Ages
- 12 to 17 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Not accepted
- Age groups
- Child
Key inclusion criteria (6 listed)
- be between the ages of 12 to 17
- be able to read English
- be a current resident of California
- report vaping at least one day per week in the past month
- report no history of cigarette use at screening and baseline
Key exclusion criteria (1 listed)
- currently receiving nicotine cessation services
Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening; this overview does not establish that a patient qualifies. Full inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Interventions
| Intervention | Type | Arms |
|---|---|---|
| Virtual Intervention for Behavioral Empowerment (VIBE)The intervention contains Personalized Normative Feedback (PNF), motivational interviewing (MI), and education about vaping and smoking harms. The program begins with the MI-based portion, which includes exploration of their experienced health and personal consequences of vaping and potential reasons for and motivation for shifting vaping behaviors (e.g., to save money, to be free from addiction). Second, the education portion involves presentation of the actual harms posed by e-cigarettes to clarify any misperceptions of the negative effects of vaping and nicotine exposure in teens. Next, users are presented with the PNF portion. In the PNF portion, participants receive feedback about their perceptions of peer vaping by presenting their typical behavior/attitude alongside their perceptions of others' behavior/attitude alongside the actual norm of the behavior/attitude. Lastly, strategies recommended for nicotine cessation are presented. | Other | Digital vaping intervention |
Primary outcome
Days vaped in the past 7 days
Time frame: Past 7 day vaping measured at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks post-randomization.
Participants will report the number of days they vaped in the past 7 days.
Times vape is picked up per day
Time frame: Past 7 day vaping measured at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks post-randomization.
Participants will report the number of times they picked up their device to vape per day in the past 7 days.
Smoking Susceptibility
Time frame: Past 7 day smoking susceptibility measured at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks post-randomization.
Smoking susceptibility will be assessed with the 4-item Expanded Susceptibility to Smoking Index, with the following responses: Definitely not, Probably not, Probably yes, and Definitely yes. This is a binary outcome. If a respondent answers "definitely not" to all four questions, they are categorized as not susceptible. Any other response on any item flags the respondent as susceptible.
7 secondary outcomes
Vaping Quit Attempts
Time frame: Vaping quit attempts in the past 7 days assessed at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks.
Vaping Descriptive Normative Perceptions
Time frame: Vaping normative perceptions assessed at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks.
Vaping Injunctive Normative Perceptions
Time frame: Vaping normative perceptions assessed at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks.
Smoking Descriptive Normative Perceptions
Time frame: Smoking normative perceptions assessed at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks.
Smoking Injunctive Normative Perceptions
Time frame: Smoking normative perceptions assessed at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks.
Quitting vaping self-efficacy
Time frame: Self-efficacy in the past 7 days assessed at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks.
Motivation to Quit Vaping
Time frame: Motivation to quit in the past 7 days assessed at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks.
Results and safety
This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 3 Jun 2026.
- Individual participant dataSharing planned: Yes. Individual participant data that underlie the results reported in this study, after de-identification, will be shared. The Study Protocol and Statistical Analysis Plan will also be available. Data will be available beginning 9 months and ending 36 months following article publication to researchers who provide a methodologically sound proposal to achieve the aims in the approved proposal. Proposals must be approved by the Principal Investigator. Please submit requests and usage plans to deniset@usc.edu.
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Referral and contact
AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals. Contact the study team or a site listed below; they decide who can take part.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A study testing Virtual Intervention for Behavioral Empowerment (VIBE) in people with E-cigarette Use and Cigarette Smoking Risk, run by University of Southern California.
The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.
Who may be eligible to take part?
The sponsor lists 6 inclusion and 1 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.
Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?
The record says: opening soon, as of the sponsor's last update on 3 Jun 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
What are the possible benefits and risks?
They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.
Are results available for this study?
This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.
How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?
Contact Denise Tran, Ph.D. (17145487785, denise.tran@med.usc.edu), or a site near the patient. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
What does the primary outcome measure?
Days vaped in the past 7 days (time frame: Past 7 day vaping measured at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks post-randomization.). The study lists 3 primary outcomes in all. It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.
Where can I read the original study information?
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?
No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.
How often is this information updated?
AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 3 Jun 2026.