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IMPACT OF APPOINTMENT REMINDERS VIA SHORT MESSAGE SERVICE IN A DISTRICT HOSPITAL

Introduction: Around the world’s hospitals the non-attendance rate is a worrying fact. Particularly in Portugal, there is one district hospital, S. Sebastião Hospital, object of this study that has adopted the method of sending SMS to patients to remind them of appointments, in order to try to reduce the non-attendance rate. Aim: To measure the changes in non-attendance rate according to the sending or not of an appointment reminder via SMS. Methods: The population enclosed all patients of S. Sebastião Hospital with mobile phone number registered at the system and the sample enclosed the patients with appointments on the days chosen for the study (N=3899). The study is experimental and transversal. It was done during 6 working days by sending a SMS randomly and alternately to the participants two working days before the appointment and then the hospital gave us the data collected. The independent variables studied were: state of SMS sending, gender, age groups, day of the week, time of the day, previous contact with the system, mobile network, type of episode, specialty. The dependent variable was the non-attendance. It was analysed the influence of each variable in the non-attendance rate, doing a chi-square test. It was also done logistics regressions for the variable attendance including in each regression the variable in study, the variable state of SMS sending and the interaction between the two variables. Results with p<0,05 were considered statistically significative. Results: The variables in which p<0,05 are: type of episode, day of the week, specialty and age groups. The difference between non-attendance rates in reminded and nonreminded group 3,5%, corresponding to a rate ratio of 26,7% and p<0,05. In the study of influence of the different variables on the impact of the SMS sending, it was obtained a p>0,05. Discussion: The variables related to the non-attendance rate are: type of episode, day of the week, specialty and age groups. The sending of SMS has a great influence on the forgetfulness, decreasing the non-attendance rate. It wasn’t found any relation between the variables studied and the impact of the SMS.