Trial reportBulletin of the World Health Organization2014
Use of text messages to communicate clinical recommendations to health workers in rural China: a cluster-randomized trial.
Trial report in Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT03346616 (Text4Peds), which is not on this map. Cited by 22 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled 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.
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.
Text4Peds: Randomized Controlled Trial Evaluating Medical Student Education
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Comparison of total endoscopic thyroidectomy with conventional open thyroidectomy for treatment of papillary thyroid cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Surgical endoscopy · 2020Pooled it
- Health Professions Digital Education on Antibiotic Management: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis by the Digital Health Education Collaboration.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Pooled it
- Mobile Digital Education for Health Professions: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis by the Digital Health Education Collaboration.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Pooled it
- The role of mood in shaping reactions to smoking cessation messages among adults who smoke: a multimodal investigation.BMC public health · 2024Trial
- The Effect of Text Message Reminders to Health Workers on Quality of Care for Malaria, Pneumonia, and Diarrhea in Malawi: A Cluster-Randomized, Controlled Trial.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2019Trial
- Benefits and Limitations of Text Messages to Stimulate Higher Learning Among Community Providers: Participants' Views of an mHealth Intervention to Support Continuing Medical Education in Vietnam.Global health, science and practice · 2017Trial
- Trial
- Testing a Machine Learning-Based Adaptive Motivational System for Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Smokers (Adapt2Quit): Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- Integration and innovation: medical and health consortia improving continuing medical education in China.Frontiers in public health · 2025Review
- Developing Mood-Based Computer-Tailored Health Communication for Smoking Cessation: Feasibility Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR formative research · 2023Article
- Effectiveness of Educational Interventions for Health Workers on Antibiotic Prescribing in Outpatient Settings in China: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Interventions to optimize the use of antibiotics in China: A scoping review of evidence from humans, animals, and the environment from a One Health perspective.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2022Article
- Identifying key influences on antibiotic use in China: a systematic scoping review and narrative synthesis.BMJ open · 2022Article
- Article
- Examining the reach and exposure of a mobile phone-based training programme for frontline health workers (ASHAs) in 13 states across India.BMJ global health · 2021Review
- Implementing the mobile continuing medical education (mCME) project in Vietnam: making it work and sharing lessons learned.mHealth · 2019Article
- Article
- mCME project V.2.0: randomised controlled trial of a revised SMS-based continuing medical education intervention among HIV clinicians in Vietnam.BMJ global health · 2018Article
- The Digital Divide and Health Disparities in China: Evidence From a National Survey and Policy Implications.Journal of medical Internet research · 2017Article
- mHealth for Clinical Decision-Making in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Scoping Review.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo compare the effectiveness of mobile phone text messaging and that of traditional health worker training in communicating clinical recommendations to health workers in China.
methodsA cluster-randomized controlled trial (Chinese Clinical Trial Register: ChiCTR-TRC-09000488) was conducted in 100 township health centres in north-western China between 17 October and 25 December 2011. Health workers were allocated either to receive 16 text messages with recommendations on the management of viral infections affecting the upper respiratory tract and otitis media (intervention group, n = 490) or to receive the same recommendations through the existing continuing medical education programme - a one-day training workshop (control group, n = 487). Health workers' knowledge of the recommendations was assessed before and after messaging and traditional training through a multiple choice questionnaire. The percentage change in score in the control group was compared with that in the intervention group. Changes in prescribing practices were also compared.
findingsHealth workers' knowledge of the recommendations increased significantly in the intervention group, both individually (0.17 points; 95% confidence interval, CI: 0.168-0.172) and at the cluster level (0.16 points; 95% CI: 0.157-0.163), but not in the control group. In the intervention group steroid prescriptions decreased by 5 percentage points but antibiotic prescriptions remained unchanged. In the control group, however, antibiotic and steroid prescriptions increased by 17 and 11 percentage points, respectively.
conclusionText messages can be effective for transmitting medical information and changing health workers' behaviour, particularly in resource-limited settings.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.