Department of Pediatric Dentistry, University of Washington, 1959 N.E. Pacific St., Box 357136, Health Sciences Center B-242, Seattle, WA 98195-7136, USA.
J Am Dent Assoc. 2011 Apr;142(4):397-405. doi: 10.14219/jada.archive.2011.0194.
Text messaging is a dominant form of communication in our society. However, little research has been conducted to evaluate its effectiveness as an appointment reminder in the dental setting.
From the patient pool of the pediatric dentistry clinic at the University of Washington, Seattle, the authors invited 543 caregiver/child dyads who met eligibility criteria to participate in this study. They randomly assigned 318 pairs (59 percent response) to receive a short message service (SMS) text message (n = 158) or a voice message (control group) (n = 160) as an appointment reminder.
Younger caregivers were more likely to be nonattendees than were older caregivers (P = .02). Participants in the voice message group had a lower no-show attendance (8.2 percent) than did those in the text message group (17.7 percent) (P = .01). The unadjusted odds ratio (OR) for type of appointment reminder and no-show attendance was 2.41 (P = .01). After the authors adjusted for the caregiver's age, the OR was 2.12 (P = .04).
SMS text messages were not as effective as voice reminders for patients in a dental school pediatric dentistry clinic. Future studies should investigate the effect of text message reminders when limited to patients who self-select that type of reminder and in patient populations outside the university setting.
Text messaging may not be the preferable method of reminding patients about appointments in a university pediatric dental clinic.
短信是我们社会中占主导地位的一种交流形式。然而，很少有研究评估其在牙科环境中作为预约提醒的有效性。
作者从西雅图华盛顿大学儿科牙科诊所的患者群体中邀请了 543 对符合条件的照顾者/儿童参与本研究。他们将 318 对（59%的回应率）随机分配到短信服务（SMS）短信组（n=158）或语音消息组（对照组）（n=160）以作为预约提醒。
年轻的照顾者比年长的照顾者更有可能不出现（P=0.02）。语音消息组的未到诊出席率（8.2%）低于短信消息组（17.7%）（P=0.01）。预约提醒类型和未到诊出席率的未调整比值比（OR）为 2.41（P=0.01）。作者调整了照顾者年龄后，OR 为 2.12（P=0.04）。
短信消息在牙科学校儿科牙科诊所对患者来说不如语音提醒有效。未来的研究应该调查当仅限于患者自行选择提醒方式且在大学环境之外的患者群体中时，短信提醒的效果。
在大学儿科牙科诊所，短信提醒可能不是提醒患者预约的首选方法。
