title: Use of short message service reminders to improve attendance at an internal medicine outpatient clinic in Saudi Arabia: a randomized controlled trial.
abstract: Non-attendance at outpatient appointments is a major problem. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of sending short message service (SMS) reminders to patients' mobile phones in reducing non-attendance at scheduled appointments. A randomized clinical trial was conducted in 2011 in an internal medicine outpatient clinic at a hospital in Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia. Eligible patients (n = 502) were randomly allocated to receive an SMS reminder of their appointment (intervention group) or no reminder (control group). The non-attendance rate was significantly lower in the reminder group (26.3%) than the non-reminder group (39.8%). In multivariate logistic regression, age, sex and nationality did not affect attendance rates but having their first contact with the hospital (OR = 7.40) and not receiving an SMS reminder (OR = 0.56) were significant factors in non-attendance. All patients surveyed about their perceptions of the SMS reminder (n = 76) reported they would like to continue to receive SMS reminders in the future.
authors: Department of Health Information Management and Technology, College of Applied Medical Sciences, University of Dammam, Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
authors: A
authors: A
authors: Youssef
mesh_terms: D000554:Ambulatory Care Facilities; D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010349:Patient Compliance; D017010:Reminder Systems; D012529:Saudi Arabia; D060145:Text Messaging