Assessing the effectiveness of text messages as appointment reminders in a pediatric dental setting.

Background: 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.

Methods: 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.

Results: 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).

Conclusions: 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.

Clinical Implications: Text messaging may not be the preferable method of reminding patients about appointments in a university pediatric dental clinic.