Turner A J, Vernon J C
J Appl Behav Anal. 1976 Summer;9(2):141-5. doi: 10.1901/jaba.1976.9-141.
The effect of a brief appointment reminder for mental-health center applicants is reported. A standardized phone message was delivered by an administrative staff member one to three days before the appointment and a sequential experimental design alternating baseline and phone message conditions was used to assess the effects of the procedure. The no-show rate averages were 32%, 11%, 25%, and 14% respectively. The cost of the procedure was $162.00, which was totally recovered when only six appointments were kept. Since over 1000 patients were involved in the study, the return on the investment of +162.00 is considerable. Implications for this procedure are discussed for other community mental-health centers and for other community care-giving agencies.
报告了针对心理健康中心申请者的简短预约提醒的效果。在预约前一至三天，由一名行政人员发送标准化的电话信息，并采用交替基线和电话信息条件的序贯实验设计来评估该程序的效果。未出现率平均分别为32%、11%、25%和14%。该程序的成本为162.00美元，仅六次预约得到遵守时就完全收回了成本。由于超过1000名患者参与了该研究，162.00美元的投资回报率相当可观。讨论了该程序对其他社区心理健康中心和其他社区护理机构的启示。
