An interventional study of Virtual Intervention for Behavioral Empowerment (VIBE) in E-cigarette Use and Cigarette Smoking Risk, sponsored by University of Southern California. Not yet recruiting. Open to participants aged 12 Years to 17 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-06-03.
Sponsored by University of Southern California · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment
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:
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.
402 studies on the registry are indexed under Vaping; 95 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 150 is above the median of 79 across 322 interventional studies indexed under Vaping.
Browse Vaping studies →University of Southern California is the lead sponsor of 791 studies on the registry; 136 are open to participants now.
Of its 70 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 32 (46%) have results posted.
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Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.
Exclusion Criteria:
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.
Other: Virtual Intervention for Behavioral Empowerment (VIBE)
Those in the control arm will be waitlisted and given the option to access VIBE (the intervention) at the end of study.
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.
Days vaped in the past 7 days
Participants will report the number of days they 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.
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.
Time frame: 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.
Time frame: Past 7 day smoking susceptibility measured at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks post-randomization.
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.
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
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,
Time frame: 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).
Time frame: 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.
Time frame: 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).
Time frame: 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."
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
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.
Time frame: Motivation to quit in the past 7 days assessed at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks.
No study locations are listed for this record.
Plan to share: 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.
Supporting information: Study protocol, Statistical analysis plan, Analytic code
Time frame: Data will be available beginning 9 months and ending 36 months following article publication upon approval.
Access criteria: De-identified individual participant data will be shared with external researchers who submit a scientifically meritorious research proposal and a comprehensive Statistical Analysis Plan (SAP). Data may be utilized for any secondary analysis or meta-analysis that contributes to public health knowledge. Requests will be evaluated directly by the Principal Investigator. Access is conditional upon the signing of a standard institutional Data Sharing Agreement. Data files will be securely shared via email attachment or secure cloud download.
Data sharing details ↗ · sites.usc.edu
No publications or documents are linked to this record.
Start is estimated for Jul 2026; primary completion for Mar 2027, 8 months later.
Of 184 non-industry interventional studies with no phase under Vaping, half reached primary completion within 20 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 9 and three quarters within 35. This study's planned 8 months is below that.
Counting every sponsor, half of 208 studies reached it within 18 months; a quarter within 6 and three quarters within 31.
How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.
This study is not yet recruiting, as verified in May 2026. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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