Trial reportSubstance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy2022
Effects of a brief pre-admission telephone reminder on no-show and dropout rates in substance use disorder treatment: a quasi-experimental study.
Trial report in Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04707599 (Reducing the Rate of Missed Appointments in an Outpatient Substance Use Treatment Clinic in Norway), which is not on this map. Cited by 2 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
Reducing the Rate of Missed Appointments in an Outpatient Substance Use Treatment Clinic in Norway
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Substance Use Disorder Treatment Outcomes: Methodological Overview of Metrics and Criteria.International journal of methods in psychiatric research · 2025Pooled it
- Attitudinal Predictors of No-Show to Substance Use Disorder Treatment Intake in Veterans.Substance use : research and treatmentArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAppointment no-show and early dropout from treatment represent major challenges in outpatient substance use disorder treatment, adversely affecting clinical outcomes and health care productivity. In this quasi-experimental study, we examined how a brief reminder intervention for new patients before their first appointment affected treatment participation and retention. No-shows (not attending any sessions) and dropouts (discontinuation of initiated treatment because of three consecutively missed appointments) were compared between a period with pre-admission telephone calls (intervention) and a period without such reminders (non-intervention).
methodsParticipants were all eligible patients (N = 262) admitted to a Norwegian specialist clinic for substance use disorder treatment. We used the Chi-square test for the no-show analysis. Of the eligible patients, 147 were included in a subsequent dropout analysis. We used the number of visits up to 10 appointments as a measure for time to event. Group differences were analyzed using a Kaplan-Meier plot and the log-rank test. To control for relevant sociodemographic variables, as well as substance use and mental distress severity, we used Cox regression.
resultsNo-show rates did not differ between the two periods (12% for non-intervention vs. 14% for intervention; χ
conclusionThese findings do not provide support for the systematic use of a brief pre-admission telephone reminder in the current treatment setting.
trial registrationThe study was retrospectively registered 13 Jan 2021 at ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04707599.
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