Evaluating the Effect of Sms Text Reminders in Attendance of Hiv Clinic Appointments

Abstract

Background Missed Clinic appointments, defaulter rates, and failure show up after starting antiretroviral therapy (ART) are all normal in Africa. There are several techniques that can be used to increase clinic attendance, such as application of software that are designed to have appointment management alerts, application of automated or manual appointment systems that possess reminders. All these can be achieved through using SMS, phone calls, or emails. Problem Missed clinic appointments pose difficulties for healthcare staff all over the world. No-show rates for scheduled clinic appointments in healthcare settings could reach up to 42 percent globally. Objective The objective of this research study meant to assess the effectiveness of Short Messaging services reminders, commonly appreviated as SMS to clients of their clinic dates in reducing missed clinic appointments in HIV Clinic. Method A randomized control trial was conducted at HIV clinic. Clients were randomized in intervention and control group. The study deployed a stratified random sampling to achieve the outlined objectives. There was application of questionnaires that were distributed to participants as they attended their clinic appointments. Data was coded and analyzed in Excel and SPSS. Non parametric method was used because the sample size was small and data was not normally distributed. Results iv The results showed that sending reminder messages to clients to remind them of their clinic appointments increases clinic attendance rates (92%) when compared to those who were not sent reminder messages (74%). Out the reasons given for missing clinic forgetting was the highest with 44%. The results showed that that the quality of the system had a remarkable value on the application of mobile applications and also on user satisfaction. Information Quality showed that there is no significant value on the application of phone mobile, as well as in the satisfaction of users. Deployment of mobile applications often showed that there is value addition on the usage and the clients who are highly satisfied with the mobile application found value on using the application. Limitations The study period was short because it was only one week (7days). The questionnaires were not all filled. Conclusion This study showed that use of short messaging service to remind clients of their clinic appointment dates is a promising intervention that can be used to increase HIV care compliance to clinic appointments. Clinic attendance rate would be increased if Clinic adopt the use of mobile applications to send reminder messages to clients on their clinic appointments. Value of the study This research would inform health care providers and other stakeholders in health care settings that use of short messaging service to remind clients of their clinic appointment dates would reduce missed clinic appointments.