Telephone reminders improve adolescent clinic attendance: a randomized controlled trial.
OBJECTIVE
To measure the effect of telephone reminders on adolescent clinic attendance.


METHODS
Clinic bookings of adolescents were randomly assigned to either a telephone reminder one day prior to their appointment, or a routine booking (no reminder). The setting was four general adolescent health clinics within a tertiary public adolescent health care service at the Centre for Adolescent Health. The main outcome measures were clinic non-attendance, reason for non-attendance, and satisfaction with the booking system.


RESULTS
One hundred and seventy one adolescent appointments were studied. Of these, 51.5% were female, and 25% of bookings were for new, rather than review appointments. One hundred and one adolescents were randomly allocated to the reminder group, of whom 87% were contacted. The use of reminders (intention to treat analysis) significantly reduced the non-attendance rate from 20% to 8% (odds ratio 0.35; P = 0.03). Non-attendance was three times more likely for a new appointment than for review appointments. 'Forgetting' was the most common explanation given by patients (35%) who did not attend. Seventy-nine per cent of parents reported telephone reminders were helpful at prompting attendance.


CONCLUSIONS
Telephone reminders greatly improved attendance at these adolescent clinics. The background non-attendance rate and the proportion of high-risk patients for non-attendance (new appointments in this setting) will determine whether reminders are more efficiently targeted at specific bookings than used routinely.
Sawyer
S M
SM
Centre for Adolescent Health, Department of Paediatrics, Royal Children's Hospital, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia. sawyers@cryptic.rch.unimelb.edu.au
Zalan
A
A
Bond
L M
LM
D000293:Adolescent; D000554:Ambulatory Care Facilities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D017010:Reminder Systems; D013689:Telephone; D014739:Victoria