Influence of publicly available online information on tobacco additives on smoking behavior in the Netherlands

More than 500 different additives are used during the production of tobacco products. Cigarettes containing on average 68 different additives, these additives were added with the purpose to make smoking among other things more attractive and tasteful. Additives are suspected to be toxic and increase smoking addiction. Since 2012, the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) provides detailed online information about tobacco additives for the general population. This study aims to clarify the impact of this online available information on smoking behavior and its psychological determinants among the general Dutch population.
A three-arm randomized controlled trial will be conducted with two experimental conditions and one control condition in the Netherlands. Participants will be allocated to one of the experimental groups with the aim to visit different parts of the website. One group will have the opportunity to look up online information about additives in general and the other group will be able to look up information about the additive composition in specific tobacco products on the website. The control group will not have access to the website. Smoking behavior, attitude, self-efficacy, knowledge, informed decision making and the intention to (quit) smoking will be assessed through an online self-assessed questionnaire. Furthermore, the website will be evaluated by participants from the two study groups. Follow-up measurement will take place three months after baseline.

1. What is the effect of information about tobacco additives for smokers and non-smokers?

2. Do participants visit and read all the information which is available on the website?

- Baseline measurement (T0) June 2014

- Follow-up measurement (T1) September 2014

The two intervention groups will visit a website which contains information about tobacco additives. One of the intervention group will additionally be asked to look up detailed information about tobacco additives. The control group will not visit the website.