Evidence map›Paper›PMID 19712544›Full record

Trial reportThe British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners2009

Text messaging reminders to reduce non-attendance in chronic disease follow-up: a clinical trial.

Su-May Liew, Seng Fah Tong, Verna Kar Mun Lee, Chirk Jenn Ng, Kwok Chi Leong, Cheong Lieng Teng

Abstract readMulticenter StudyRandomized Controlled Trial
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Trial report in The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 59 papers, 13 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
59citing papers in PubMed, 13 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

59 citing papers in PubMed, 13 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

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  5. The Empirical Foundations of Telemedicine Interventions in Primary Care.Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association · 2016
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  9. The impact of mobile health interventions on chronic disease outcomes in developing countries: a systematic review.Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association · 2014
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  11. Mobile phone messaging reminders for attendance at healthcare appointments.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2013
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors.

Su-May LiewDepartment of Primary Care Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Malaysia. sumayliew@gmail.com
Seng Fah Tong
Verna Kar Mun Lee
Chirk Jenn Ng
Kwok Chi Leong
Cheong Lieng Teng

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundNon-attendance results in administrative problems and disruption in patient care. Several interventions have been used to reduce non-attendance, with varying degree of success. A relatively new intervention, text messaging, has been shown to be as effective as telephone reminders in reducing non-attendance. However, no study has looked specifically at using text messaging reminders to reduce non-attendance in chronic disease care.

aimTo determine if text messaging would be effective in reducing non-attendance in patients on long-term followup, compared with telephone reminders and no reminder. DESIGN OF STUDY: A randomised controlled trial with three arms: text messaging reminder, telephone reminder, and control.

settingTwo primary care clinics in Malaysia.

methodA total of 931 subjects who had been on at least 6 months of follow-up were randomised into the three groups. Demographic variables were recorded at the first visit. In the intervention arms, a reminder was sent 24–48 hours prior to the appointment. Non-attendance rate was documented at the second visit. Non-attenders were defined as those who did not attend, attended early, or attended late without rescheduling their appointment. Attenders were defined as participants who had turned up for their scheduled appointment and those who had changed or cancelled their appointment with notification.

resultsThe non-attendance rates in the text messaging group (odds ratio [OR] = 0.62, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.41 to 0.93, P = 0.020) and the telephone reminder group (OR = 0.53, 95% CI = 0.35 to 0.81), P = 0.003) were significantly lower than the control group. The absolute non-attendance rate for telephone reminders was lower by 2% compared to the text messaging group. This difference was not found to be statistically significant (P = 0.505).

conclusionText messaging was found to be as effective as telephone reminder in reducing non-attendance in patients who required long-term follow-up for their chronic illnesses in this study. It could be used as an alternative to conventional reminder systems.

Indexed as

Cell PhoneReminder SystemsChronic DiseaseFemaleFollow-Up StudiesHumansMaleMiddle AgedPatient CompliancePrimary Health Care

Identifiers

PMID19712544
PMCPMC2784529

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.