Trial reportJournal of postgraduate medicine
Effect of mobile voice calls on treatment initiation among patients diagnosed with tuberculosis in a tertiary care hospital of Puducherry: A randomized controlled trial.
Trial report in Journal of postgraduate medicine. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 2 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 11 citations in OpenAlex.
- Barriers to engagement in the care cascade for tuberculosis disease in India: A systematic review of quantitative studies.PLoS medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Improving cascade outcomes for active TB: A global systematic review and meta-analysis of TB interventions.PLoS medicine · 2023Pooled it
- Telephonic reminders for improving anti-rabies vaccination completion at a rural primary health centre: A quality improvement initiative.The Indian journal of medical research · 2026Article
- Effect of SMS Reminders, Telephone Calls, and Transport Incentives on Enhancing the Completion of Tuberculosis Diagnosis and Initiation of Treatment for Diagnosed Patients: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- Clinically diagnosed tuberculosis and mortality in high burden settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis.EClinicalMedicine · 2025Article
- Facilitators and barriers for completion of the diagnostic process among people with presumed tuberculosis in Central Uganda.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Interventions and implementation considerations for reducing pre-treatment loss to follow-up in adults with pulmonary tuberculosis: A scoping review.F1000Research · 2024Article
- A Scoping Review on Accentuating the Pragmatism in the Implication of Mobile Health (mHealth) Technology for Tuberculosis Management in India.Journal of personalized medicine · 2022Article
- Leveraging mHealth intervention to ensure initiation of treatment for tuberculosis.Journal of postgraduate medicineArticle
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective: In India, about one third of tuberculosis (TB) patients diagnosed at tertiary hospitals are missed during a referral to peripheral health institutes for treatment. To address this, we assessed whether mobile voice call reminders to TB patients after diagnosis at a tertiary hospital decrease the proportion of "pretreatment loss to follow-up" (PTLFU), compared with the conventional paper-based referral. Design: A two-group parallel-arm randomized controlled trial was conducted. Setting: The study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital at Puducherry, South India. Participants: All newly diagnosed TB patients, both pulmonary and extrapulmonary, who were referred for treatment from the selected tertiary care hospital and possessed a mobile phone were eligible to participate. The participants were enrolled between March 2015 and June 2016 and were randomized to study groups using the block randomization with allocation concealment. Intervention: The participants in the intervention arm received standardized mobile voice calls reminding them to register for anti-TB treatment on the second and seventh day after referral in addition to the conventional paper-based referral received by the control group. Primary outcomes: Patients not started on anti-TB treatment within 14 days of referral were considered as PTLFU. The outcome of PTLFU was ascertained through phone calls made on the 14 Results: Of the 393 patients assessed for eligibility, 310 were randomized to the intervention (n = 155) and control (n = 155) arms. In the intervention arm, 14 (9%) out of 155 were PTLFU compared with 28 (18%) of the 155 patients in the control arm. The absolute risk difference was 9% (95% CI [1.5, 16.6], P = 0.01). Conclusion: Mobile voice call reminder to patients is a feasible intervention and can reduce PTLFU among referred TB patients.
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.