Journal of Psychiatry

Impact of cellular reminder on follow up patients suffering from psychosis: Randomized controlled trial

27^th International Conference on PSYCHIATRY & PSYCHOLOGY HEALTH

June 18-19, 2018 Paris, France

Mehmood N and Talib U

Karwan E Hayat Psychiatric Care & Rehabilitation Center, Pakistan

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Psychiatry

Abstract:

Many methods to remind patients about their appointments have been studied, including personal phone calls, automated phone calls and mailed letters. However, mobile phones using the short message service (SMS) are now commonplace in both developed and developing countries. Mobile phone messages have the advantage of being convenient, inexpensive and able to reach to the intended person immediately. Objective: To evaluate the impact of tailored cell phone text messages to improve the follow up patients suffering from psychosis. Design: A randomized controlled study with a two-armed trial was conducted in Karwan E Hayat, Karachi. Method: The participants were recruited from out patients setting of Karwan E Hayat. A total of 248 participants were randomly divide into two groups; SMS group and control group. The participants were adult patients aged 18�??65 years and taking antipsychotic medication, who have a mobile phone, are able to use the Urdu language. The SMS group was receiving automatic system messages after they recruited in study. Result: There were no significant differences between two groups at baseline. At three months follow up attendance rate for the SMS group (48%) was significant higher than for the control group (22%) in initial 100 participants based on a 2-sample test of proportion (P=0.048). Conclusion: This study demonstrated that text messaging interventions are feasible and cost effective interventions to improve the follow up attendance rate in outpatient setting, especially for the people with psychosis.