c o m p u t e r m e t h o d s a n d p r o g r a m s i n b i o m e d i c i n e 1 1 5 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 33–45 jo ur nal ho me p ag e: www.intl.elsevierhealt h.com/journals/cmpb S-PC: An e-treatment application for management of smoke-quitting patients Jordi Vilaplana a , Francesc Solsona a,* , Francesc Abella c , Josep Cuadrado b , Rui Alves d , Jordi Mateo a a Departament d’Informàtica i Enginyeria Industrial & INSPIRES, Universitat de Lleida, Av. Jaume II no 69, 25001 LLeida, Spain b Hesoft Group, Partida Bovà, 15, 25196 Lleida, Spain c Unitat de Tabaquisme de l’Hospital Santa Maria, Alcalde Rovira Roure, 44, 25198 LLeida, Spain d Departament de Ciències Mèdiques Bàsiques & IRBLleida, Universitat de Lleida, Montserrat Roig no 2, 25008 LLeida, Spain a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 24 August 2013 Received in revised form 6 February 2014 Accepted 11 March 2014 Keywords: E-health SMS Smoking cessation Treatment support a b s t r a c t The main objective of this paper is to present a new program that facilitates the management of people who want to quit smoking, implemented through an e-treatment software called S-PC (Smoker Patient Control). S-PC is a web-based application that manages groups of patients, provides a bidirectional communication through mobile text messages and e-mails between patients and clinicians and offers advice and control to keep track of the patients and their status. A total of 229 patients were enrolled in the study, randomly divided into two groups, although some variables were tested to ensure that there were no significant differences between the groups that could have an impact on the outcome of the treatment. There were no significant differences between the two groups regarding the ratio/number of males/females, tobacco dependence, co-oximetry, average cigarette consumption, current age and age when smoking started. The first group was made up of 104 patients (45.4% of the total) and followed a treatment that incorporated the S-PC tool, while the second one had 125 patients without the S-PC tool. S-PC was evaluated for its effectiveness at assisting the patients to give up smoking, and its effect on clinician time management. 74% of the S-PC group completed the treatment without relapses and remained abstinent three months after the completion of the treatment, understanding abstinence as being continuous (with no relapses allowed and co-oximetry below 1 ppm) from the day of stop- ping. In contrast only 45.6% of the No S-PC group completed the treatment without relapses and remained abstinent three months after completion of the treatment. The rate of admit- tance to the program has doubled in one year and patients went from having to wait for 3 months to be immediately admitted into the program. ∗ Corresponding author at: Departament d’Informàtica i Enginyeria Industrial, Universitat de Lleida, Av. Jaume II no 69, 25001 Lleida, Spain. Tel.: +34 973 70 27 35; fax: +34 973 70 27 02. E-mail address: francesc@diei.udl.cat (F. Solsona). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cmpb.2014.03.005 0169-2607/© 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.