title: Use of mobile telephone short message service as a reminder: the effect on patient attendance.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Nonattendance for hospital outpatient appointments is a major burden on healthcare systems and the estimated financial loss can be high. Various reasons for patients not attending have been reported, including the patient/carer forgetting the appointment and confusion over the date and time of the appointment. Various reminder systems have been trialled across a variety of clinical settings. More recently, short message service (SMS) text messaging has emerged as a viable approach for delivering reminders to outpatients at a relatively low cost.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the effect of appointment reminders, sent as SMS text messages to patients' mobile telephones, on attendance at outpatient clinics at the ITS Centre for Dental Studies and Research (ITS-CDSR), Muradnagar, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study was conducted at ITS-CDSR in the Departments of Prosthodontics, Endodontics, Orthodontics and Paedodontics. Patients attending these departments for a period of 4 months and those who had provided a contact mobile number were sent an SMS reminder.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In this study, 206 subjects (male, 124; female, 82) participated, 96 (male, 57; female, 39) of whom were in the test group and 110 (male, 67; female, 43) of whom were in the control group. The rate of attendance on time was found to be significantly higher in the test group (79.2%) than in the control group (35.5%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The study results indicate that sending appointment reminders as text messages to patients is an effective strategy to reduce nonattendance rates.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Dentistry, ITS Centre for Dental Studies and Research, Muradnagar, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India. samash72@rediffmail.com
authors.forename: Sumanth
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Prasad
authors.forename: Richa
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Anand
mesh_terms: D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D003740:Dental Clinics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D017010:Reminder Systems; D060145:Text Messaging