Abstract
Objective
By the end of 2014, 23% of people living with HIV (PWHIV) who had had a scheduled appointment at our outpatient clinic had not attended. We implemented an SMS reminder service and assessed its impact on medical consultation-attendance rate.
Methods
The intervention was directed at all PWHIV with a scheduled appointment between March and April 2015 at our infectious diseases department. Two days before the scheduled visit, an appointment reminder SMS was sent to every other patient at random. On the visit day, a questionnaire was used to determine patient perceptions regarding the SMS.
Results
A total of 224 patients (126 males, 98 females, mean age 52 years, 94% taking anti-retroviral therapy) were selected to take part in the study. The medical consultation-attendance rate was 76% in the SMS reminder read group (87 patients) and 72% in the SMS reminder not sent or not read group (137 patients, P=0.6). Among the 66 SMS reminder read patients who attended their consultation and answered the questionnaire, 51% reported that the SMS had contributed to their attendance.
Conclusion
Sending an SMS reminder had no significant impact on clinic attendance rates. This may have been due in part to the sociocultural characteristics of our patients. Further research should investigate other tools to improve attendance rates.
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the secretaries, nurses, and doctors of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine of PAPUH for their valuable collaboration, and Katie Percival for proofreading the English manuscript.
Author contributions
MZ collected the data. MZ and BM designed the study and drafted the manuscript. BB participated in statistical analysis. RO and IL participated in patient enrolment and data collection, and critically reviewed the manuscript. BH supervised the study, drafted the study protocol, reviewed the data and analysis, and participated in writing the manuscript. All authors contributed toward data analysis, drafting and critically revising the paper, gave final approval of the version to be published, and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work.
Disclosure
The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.