Trial reportJMIR mental health2026
Association of Supportive Text Messaging With Health Service Utilization Costs Following Psychiatric Admission: Secondary Economic Analysis of a Stepped-Wedge Cluster Randomized Trial.
Trial report in JMIR mental health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
15 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Psychiatric hospitalizations are a major driver of mental health-related health care costs, with readmission risk and service utilization being highest in the months following discharge. Scalable, low-cost postdischarge interventions that reduce inpatient utilization are therefore of high policy relevance. Objective: This secondary exploratory economic study used linked administrative health care utilization data to evaluate the economic impact of supportive text messaging (SMS), alone and in combination with peer support services (PSS), following discharge from acute psychiatric care. Methods: This secondary exploratory economic evaluation was conducted alongside a pragmatic stepped-wedge cluster randomized trial in Alberta, Canada. Adults discharged from acute psychiatric inpatient care received treatment as usual (TAU), SMS, or SMS with or without PSS. Direct health system costs, including hospital care and physician costs, were assessed using administrative data for 6 months and 12 months before and after the index admission. Difference-in-difference analyses were used to estimate cost changes between groups. Results: At 6 months post discharge, the period of greatest new costs, participants receiving SMS experienced a significant reduction in hospital care costs compared with TAU (mean difference-in-differences -$7147; 95% CI -$12,388 to -$1906; Conclusions: SMS was associated with significant reductions in hospital care and total health care utilization costs during the 6-month postdischarge period compared with TAU. These findings support the integration of cost-effective and scalable digital interventions into routine psychiatric discharge pathways to help improve system efficiency in publicly funded health systems.
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