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Using text message reminders in health care services: A narrative literature review
Open accessAbstract
INTRODUCTION: Despite the extensive use of mHealth behavior change interventions, questions remain about the use of technology-based reminders in delivering health care services. Text messaging, or short message service (SMS), is one reminder method that has been extensively researched. Most SMS-reminder research is distributed across a range of health care outcomes. The aim of this article is to systematically review the aggregate impact of these reminders on overall health care outcomes. METHODS: A systematic literature review was conducted and yielded 2316 articles. Studies were included if they used SMS reminders to support patient health care outcomes. Study methodology was aligned with the PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews. RESULTS: Following screening, 162 articles met inclusion criteria. Of these studies, 93 investigated medical compliance reminders and 56 investigated appointment reminders. The review found that nearly all the SMS-reminder studies helped improve patient medical compliance and appointment reminders. Additionally, researchers reported numerous benefits from using SMS reminders, including ease of use, relative inexpensiveness, and rapid and automated message delivery. Minimal risks were reported and most participants found the reminders to be acceptable. DISCUSSION: Text messages appear to be an effective reminder mechanism to promote improved patient appointment and medical compliance. Reminders should continue to be evaluated and improved to determine the most effective timing and frequency of messages for improving outcomes.
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“As an example, some trials suggested that SMS text messaging reminders may improve behavior, clinic attendance, attention in care, and self-reported medication adherence [21].”
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“Several meta-analyses corroborate the effectiveness of SMS for medication adherence [18-20].”
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“To our knowledge, no other published study (other than the study by Brar Prayaga et al [21]) has reported a refill adherence solution with results at scale [20].”
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“These services provide a timely, effective, and financially viable platform that can facilitate convenient and comprehensive communication between health care services and patients [2].”
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“Reminders are likened to ‘stop signs at a busy intersection’, reminding us what to do next[9].”
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“This problem has been described in the literature but is most likely outweighed by the positive effect of e-mail or short text message reminders [53].”
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“41 PrEP users also highlighted the importance of clear instructions for all stages of the online pathway, in line with other studies and national guidance regarding online postal self-sampling for HIV and STIs.”
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“…with other research, and has been successfully capitalized on for a number of years, with texts to remind patients of appointments across a number of services in the US and Europe (e.g. Dash et al., 2016; Schwebel and Larimer, 2018) – though this is less common in rehabilitation services.”
Decreasing Missed Appointments at a Community Health Center: A Community Collaborative Project
Biggs, J., Njoku, N., Kurtz, K., & Omar, A. (2022) · Journal of Primary Care & Community Health · doi:10.1177/21501319221106877 · Cited by 8
Srivastava, T., Emmer, K. L., & Feemster, K. A. (2020) · Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics · doi:10.1080/21645515.2020.1712934 · Cited by 8
Encouraging foot care in people with and without diabetes through narrative communication
Reaney, M. D., Gladwin, T. E., Chmiel, N., & Churchill, S. (2021) · Journal of Health Psychology · doi:10.1177/13591053211017206 · Cited by 8
Using Behavioural Insights to Improve the Uptake of Services for Drug and Alcohol Misuse
Alderson, H., Spencer, L. P., Scott, S., Kaner, E., Reeves, A., Robson, S., & Ling, J. (2021) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph18136923 · Cited by 8
de Jersey, S., Meloncelli, N. J. L., Guthrie, T. M., Powlesland, H., Callaway, L. K., Chang, A. T., Wilkinson, S. A., Comans, T. A., & Eakin, E. (2022) · BMC Health Services Research · doi:10.1186/s12913-022-08002-5 · Cited by 8
“Text message reminders have been commonly used to successfully increase attendance at health care appointments and adherence to behaviour change advice [39].”
BackgroundImpact of patient and provider nudges on addressing herpes zoster vaccine series completion
Gatwood, J. D., Brookhart, A. L., Kinney, O., Hagemann, T. M., Chiu, C., Ramachandran, S., Gravlee, E., & Hohmeier, K. C. (2022) · Vaccine · doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.12.016 · Cited by 8
Favaretti, C., Pillai, V. S., Murthy, S., Chandrasekar, A., Yan, S. D., Sulaiman, H., Gautam, A., Kaur, B., Ali, M. K., McConnell, M. A., et al. (2024) · BMC Public Health · doi:10.1186/s12889-024-19894-9 · Cited by 7
“Overall, the existing literature on reminders is highly mixed, with several studies finding null or small effects [10, 11].”
BackgroundVives, N., Binefa, G., Travier, N., Farré, A., Panera, J. A., Casas, B., Vidal, C., Ibáñez‐Sanz, G., & García, M. (2024) · JMIR mhealth and uhealth · doi:10.2196/64243 · Cited by 7
“Its utility lies in its accessibility, affordability, and effectiveness as a platform for conveying health-related information, reminders, and motivation [7-9].”
Laurence, M. C., Titaley, C. R., Tahitu, R., Asmin, E., Kailola, N. E., Istia, S. S., Tando, Y. D., Pasamba, L. A., & Sara, L. S. (2025) · Frontiers in Digital Health · doi:10.3389/fdgth.2025.1542006 · Cited by 7
Zewdu, E. M., Demessie, A., Nigatu, A. M., & Baykemagn, N. D. (2024) · BMC Health Services Research · doi:10.1186/s12913-024-11794-3 · Cited by 7
Ovens, K., Reynolds-Wright, J. J., Cross, E. L. A., Rickwood, L., Hassan-Ibrahim, M. O., & Soni, S. (2019) · BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health · doi:10.1136/bmjsrh-2019-200384 · Cited by 7
Oliver, C., Rebeiro, P., Shepherd, B. E., Keruly, J., Mayer, K. H., Mathews, W. C., Turan, B., Moore, R., Crane, H., Geng, E., et al. (2019) · Clinical Infectious Diseases · doi:10.1093/cid/ciz1144 · Cited by 4
“One systematic review found that interventions encouraging patient self-management led to better HIV outcomes and another found overwhelming evidence that text appointment reminders improved HIV outcomes [7, 8].”
BackgroundDisparities in Text Messaging Interventions to Improve Diabetes Management in the United States
Eyler, A. A., Gachupin, F. C., Johnston, S., Kapp, J. M., Parra, D. C., & Popescu, M. (2020) · Diabetes Spectrum · doi:10.2337/ds19-0071 · Cited by 8
Barrera, D., Bayer, S., Brailsford, S., & Smith, H. K. (2022) · BMC Women s Health · doi:10.1186/s12905-022-01800-3 · Cited by 10
“Generally, behavioural strategies aimed at the whole population are not costeffective [12, 84, 85].”
BackgroundMorgan, A. R., Bégin, D., Heisz, J. J., Tang, A., Thabane, L., & Richardson, J. A. (2022) · Physical Therapy · doi:10.1093/ptj/pzac078 · Cited by 9
Lima, L. A. C. N., Otis, A., Balram, S., Bérard‐Giasson, A., Carnevale, F. A., Frigon, C., & Brown, K. A. (2023) · Canadian Journal of Anesthesia/Journal canadien d anesthésie · doi:10.1007/s12630-023-02479-2 · Cited by 7
“In health care, text messaging and picture imaging are nascent technologies.(36)”
BackgroundMekonen, E. G., & Alemu, S. A. (2021) · Heliyon · doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07530 · Cited by 9
Vives, N., Farré, A., Ibáñez‐Sanz, G., Vidal, C., Binefa, G., Milà, N., Pérez-Lacasta, M. J., Travier, N., Benito‐Aracil, L., Espinàs, J. A., et al. (2021) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0245806 · Cited by 6
Faujdar, D. S., Kaur, M., Singh, T., Sahay, S., & Kumar, R. (2022) · Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care · doi:10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_809_21 · Cited by 6
“[8] There are several studies where use of SMS in health services had led to improvement in attendance, adherence, risk factors, chronic disease follow‐up and adoption of healthy life styles.[6,12,13] However, very few studies have evaluated their effectiveness in poor and underprivileged slum population where most of…”
BackgroundBhashyam, A. R., Bansal, M., McGovern, M. M., van der Vliet, Q. M. J., & Heng, M. M. (2022) · JMIR Perioperative Medicine · doi:10.2196/37148 · Cited by 6
Victor-Ikoh, M. I., Moko, A. B., & Nwankwo, W. (2022) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-05014-5_7 · Cited by 6
Labrague, L. J., Galabay, J. R., Anastacio, A. L., McEnroe–Petitte, D. M., & Tsaras, K. (2020) · Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences · doi:10.1111/scs.12849 · Cited by 7
Descriptive study of parents’ perceptions of paediatric ward rounds
Barrington, J., Polley, C., van Heerden, C., & Gray, A. Z. (2021) · Archives of Disease in Childhood · doi:10.1136/archdischild-2020-320318 · Cited by 6
Hailemariam, T., Atnafu, A., Gezie, L. D., Kaasbøll, J., Klein, J., & Tilahun, B. C. (2025) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0312965 · Cited by 8
“Studies show that mobile health increases adherence to health service utilization, develops health seeking behavior, decreases the chance of missing health care appointments, and enhances client and care provider relationships [53,54].”
Ayalde, J., Soong, W., Thomas, S., McCann, P., Griffiths, J., Nicholls, C., Heble, S., Dragović, M., & Waters, F. (2023) · Early Intervention in Psychiatry · doi:10.1111/eip.13379 · Cited by 5
Faisal, F., Rachmawaty, R., & Sjattar, E. L. (2021) · Journal of Telenursing (JOTING) · doi:10.31539/joting.v3i2.2632 · Cited by 5
Liu, Y., Li, S., Yu, J., Cao, J., Ma, Q., Liu, Y., Zheng, Y., You, Y., Lv, W., Li, Q., et al. (2025) · BMC Nursing · doi:10.1186/s12912-025-03037-5 · Cited by 4
“Studies have shown that text messaging reminders help improve medical appointment compliance by addressing issues of forgetfulness [36].”
Metadata
- Authors
- Schwebel, F. J., & Larimer, M. E.
- Affiliations
- University of Washington (US)
- Corresponding author
- Schwebel, Frank J.
- Venue
- Internet Interventions
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2018-09
- Volume
- 13
- Pages
- 82-104
- ISSN
- 2214-7829 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6112101
- OpenAlex
- W2809176170
- Cited by
- 238
- References
- 180
- Citations by year
- 2026: 22 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 54 · 2021: 37 · 2020: 30 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 3.62
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Internet Interventions (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (1F31AA025531-01)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Health, Technology, Consumer Behavior
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Family Practice › Medication Adherence and Compliance
- Keywords
- SMS reminders, short message service, mobile health, appointment reminders, medication adherence, health care outcomes
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