Text messaging is a useful reminder tool

Introduction Longitudinal studies of adolescents must be ‘adolescent-friendly’, to collect data and to encourage maintenance in the study cohort. Text messaging may offer a feasible means to do both. Methods Adolescents in the Adolescent Rural Cohort, Hormones and Health, Education, Environments and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Archives of disease in childhood 2014-07, Vol.99 (7), p.666-667
Main Authors: Balzer, Ben W R, Kelly, Patrick J, Hazell, Philip, Paxton, Karen, Hawke, Catherine, Steinbeck, Katharine S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adolescents
Biological and medical sciences
Cell Phone - statistics & numerical data
Cellular telephones
Compliance
Control Groups
Data collection
Female
Females
General aspects
Hormones
Humans
Longitudinal Studies
Male
Males
Medical sciences
Menstruation
Miscellaneous
Prevention and actions
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Reminder Systems - statistics & numerical data
Response rates
Rural Population
Studies
Teenagers
Text messaging
Text Messaging - statistics & numerical data
Urine
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Summary:Introduction Longitudinal studies of adolescents must be ‘adolescent-friendly’, to collect data and to encourage maintenance in the study cohort. Text messaging may offer a feasible means to do both. Methods Adolescents in the Adolescent Rural Cohort, Hormones and Health, Education, Environments and Relationships (ARCHER) study (n=342) are sent automated text messages every 3 months, prompting biological specimen collection. Results A total of 99.2% of participants (or their parents) owned a mobile phone, of which 89.1% of participants responded to text messages and 97.3% of intended urine samples were collected. The average time to provide a urine sample after prompting correlated with time to reply to Short Message Service (SMS). Conclusions This study shows SMS can be used effectively in longitudinal research involving adolescents and is feasible and useful as a reminder tool for regular biological specimen collection.
ISSN:0003-9888
1468-2044
DOI:10.1136/archdischild-2014-306075