A Randomized Controlled Trial of SMS Text Messaging Versus Postal Reminder to Improve Attendance After Lipid Lowering Therapy in Primary Care

This study was designed to evaluate the effect and cost-effectiveness of different reminder methods in improving attendance rate in a primary care setting. The authors tested two methods - postal reminders and SMS reminders - against a control. Significantly more SMS text messaging group patients refilled their prescriptions by their week 24 visit compared to control group patients, whereas postal messages did not significantly increase this measure. In addition, sending SMS reminders was 4.7 times more cost-effective than sending postal messages. These results suggest that SMS text messaging is more effective than traditional postal messages in terms of improving both attendance rate and cost-effectiveness.