Division of Emergency Medicine, Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine, Medical School, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
Department of Anaesthesia and Pain Management, Perth Children's Hospital, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
Paediatr Anaesth. 2022 Aug;32(8):954-960. doi: 10.1111/pan.14481. Epub 2022 May 25.
Monitoring children's recovery postoperatively is important for routine care, research, and quality improvement. Although telephone follow-up is common, it is also time-consuming and intrusive for families. Using SMS messaging to communicate with families regarding their child's recovery has the potential to address these concerns. While a previous survey at our institution indicated that parents were willing to communicate with the hospital by SMS, data on response rates for SMS-based postoperative data collection is limited, particularly in pediatric populations.
We conducted a feasibility study with 50 completed pain profiles obtained from patients at Perth Children's Hospital to examine response rates.
We collected and classified daily average pain (0-10 parent proxy score) on each day after tonsillectomy until pain-free for two consecutive days.
We enrolled 62 participants and recorded 50 (81%) completed pain profiles, with 711 (97.9%) of 726 requests for a pain score receiving a response. Two families (3%) opted out of the trial, and 10 (16%) were lost to follow-up. Responses received were classified automatically in 92% of cases. No negative feedback was received, with a median (range) satisfaction score of 5 on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = very unhappy, 5 = very happy).
This methodology is likely to generalize well to other simple clinical questions and produce good response rates in further similar studies. We expect SMS messaging to permit expanded longitudinal data collection and broader investigation into patient recovery than previously feasible using telephone follow-up at our institution.
监测儿童术后恢复情况对于常规护理、研究和质量改进都很重要。虽然电话随访很常见，但对家庭来说也很耗时且具有侵扰性。使用短信消息与家庭就其孩子的康复情况进行沟通，有可能解决这些问题。尽管我院之前的一项调查表明，家长愿意通过短信与医院沟通，但基于短信的术后数据收集的响应率数据有限，尤其是在儿科人群中。
我们对珀斯儿童医院的 50 名完成疼痛评估的患者进行了一项可行性研究，以检查响应率。
我们收集并分类了每位患者在扁桃体切除术后每天的平均疼痛（0-10 父母代理评分），直到连续两天无疼痛。
我们共纳入了 62 名参与者，并记录了 50 名（81%）完成的疼痛评估，726 次疼痛评分请求中有 711 次（97.9%）得到了回复。有 2 个家庭（3%）选择退出试验，10 个家庭（16%）失访。在 92%的情况下，回复是自动分类的。没有收到任何负面反馈，5 分制满意度评分中位数（范围）为 5（1 分表示非常不满意，5 分表示非常满意）。
这种方法很可能适用于其他简单的临床问题，并在进一步的类似研究中产生良好的响应率。我们预计短信消息将允许比我们机构以前的电话随访更广泛地进行扩展的纵向数据收集和更广泛的患者康复调查。
