Predicting Attrition in a Text-Based Nutrition Education Program: Survival Analysis of Text2BHealthy.

Background: Text-based programs have been shown to effectively address a wide variety of health issues. Although little research examines short message service (SMS) text messaging program characteristics that predict participant retention and attrition, features of SMS text message programs, such as program duration and intensity, message content, and the participants' context, may have an impact. The impact of stop messages-messages with instructions for how to drop out of an SMS text message program-may be particularly important to investigate.

Feasibility of bidirectional text messages in evaluating a text-based nutrition education program for low-income parents: Results from the Text2BHealthy program.

Text messages are increasingly used in the delivery of health education programs. One appealing aspect of this approach is the possibility of remotely collecting participant data to use in program tailoring or evaluation. The purpose of the present study is to test the feasibility of using text messages to collect participant data.