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      Scaling Up mHealth: Where Is the Evidence?

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          Abstract

          Mark Tomlinson and colleagues question whether there is sufficient evidence on implementation and effectiveness to match the wide enthusiasm for mHealth interventions, and propose a global strategy to determine needed evidence to support mHealth scale-up.

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          Most cited references17

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          The effect of mobile phone text-message reminders on Kenyan health workers' adherence to malaria treatment guidelines: a cluster randomised trial

          Summary Background Health workers' malaria case-management practices often differ from national guidelines. We assessed whether text-message reminders sent to health workers' mobile phones could improve and maintain their adherence to treatment guidelines for outpatient paediatric malaria in Kenya. Methods From March 6, 2009, to May 31, 2010, we did a cluster-randomised controlled trial at 107 rural health facilities in 11 districts in coastal and western Kenya. With a computer-generated sequence, health facilities were randomly allocated to either the intervention group, in which all health workers received text messages on their personal mobile phones on malaria case-management for 6 months, or the control group, in which health workers did not receive any text messages. Health workers were not masked to the intervention, although patients were unaware of whether they were in an intervention or control facility. The primary outcome was correct management with artemether-lumefantrine, defined as a dichotomous composite indicator of treatment, dispensing, and counselling tasks concordant with Kenyan national guidelines. The primary analysis was by intention to treat. The trial is registered with Current Controlled Trials, ISRCTN72328636. Findings 119 health workers received the intervention. Case-management practices were assessed for 2269 children who needed treatment (1157 in the intervention group and 1112 in the control group). Intention-to-treat analysis showed that correct artemether-lumefantrine management improved by 23·7 percentage-points (95% CI 7·6–40·0; p=0·004) immediately after intervention and by 24·5 percentage-points (8·1–41·0; p=0·003) 6 months later. Interpretation In resource-limited settings, malaria control programmes should consider use of text messaging to improve health workers' case-management practices. Funding The Wellcome Trust.
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            Mobile phone text messaging for promoting adherence to antiretroviral therapy in patients with HIV infection.

            More than 34 million people are presently living with HIV infection. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) can help these people to live longer, healthier lives, but adherence to ART can be difficult. Mobile phone text-messaging has the potential to help promote adherence in these patients. To determine whether mobile phone text-messaging is efficacious in enhancing adherence to ART in patients with HIV infection. Using the Cochrane Collaboration's validated search strategies for identifying randomised controlled trials and reports of HIV interventions, along with appropriate keywords and MeSH terms, we searched a range of electronic databases, including the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), EMBASE, Literatura Latino-Americana e do Caribe em Ciências da Saúde (LILACS), MEDLINE (via PubMed), PsycINFO, Web of Science, and the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Index Medicus. The date range was from  01 January 1980 to 01 November 2011. There were no limits to language or publication status. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in which patients or their caregivers (in the case of infants and children) of any age, in any setting, and receiving ART were provided with mobile phone text messages as a means of promoting adherence to ART. Two authors independently examined the abstracts of all identified trials. We initially identified 243 references. Seventeen full-text articles were closely reviewed. Both authors abstracted data independently, using a pre-designed, standardised data collection form. When appropriate, data were combined in meta-analysis. Two RCTs from Kenya were included in the review. One trial compared short weekly text messages against standard care. The other trial compared short daily, long daily, short weekly and long weekly messages against standard care. Both trials were with adult patients.In the trial comparing only short weekly messages to standard care, text messaging was associated with a lower risk of non-adherence at 12 months (RR 0.77, 95% CI 0.63 to 0.93) and with the non-occurrence of virologic failure at 12 months (RR 0.83, 95% CI 0.69 to 0.99).In the trial that compared different intervals and lengths for text-messaging to standard care, long weekly text-messaging was not significantly associated with a lower risk of non-adherence compared to standard care (RR 0.79, 95% CI 0.60 to 1.04). Patients receiving weekly text-messages of any length were at lower risk of non-adherence at 48 weeks than were patients receiving daily messages of any length (RR 0.79, 95% CI 0.64 to 0.99). There were no significant differences between weekly text-messaging of any length (RR 1.01, 95% CI 0.75 to 1.37) and between short or long messaging at either interval (RR 0.99, 95% CI 0.78 to 1.27). Compared to standard care, any daily text-messaging, whether short or long, did not reduce the risk for non-adherence (RR 0.99, 95% CI 0.82 to 1.20).In meta-analysis of both trials, any weekly text-messaging (i.e. whether short or long messages) was associated with a lower risk of non-adherence at 48-52 weeks (RR 0.78, 95% CI 0.68 to 0.89). The effect of short weekly text-messaging was also significant (RR 0.77, 95% CI 0.67 to 0.89). There is high-quality evidence from the two RCTs that mobile phone text-messaging at weekly intervals is efficacious in enhancing adherence to ART, compared to standard care. There is high quality evidence from one trial that weekly mobile phone text-messaging is efficacious in improving HIV viral load suppression. Policy-makers should consider funding programs proposing to provide weekly mobile phone text-messaging as a means for promoting adherence to antiretroviral therapy. Clinics and hospitals should consider implementing such programs. There is a need for large RCTs of this intervention in adolescent populations, as well as in high-income countries.
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              How effective are short message service reminders at increasing clinic attendance? A meta-analysis and systematic review.

              In the last few years there has been a steady uptake of mobile phone short message service (SMS) reminders to increase medical attendance rates. We undertook a review of studies that assessed the effectiveness of SMS reminders at increasing the uptake of appointments in health care settings. We reviewed studies which involved a comparison of appointment attendance rates between patients who did and did not receive SMS reminders published prior to June 2010. We used meta-analysis methods to calculate the overall effect on attendance rates, stratified by study design and clinic type. The review criteria were met by 18 reports, made up of eight randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and 10 controlled observational studies. Across all studies, there was significant heterogeneity in the estimated effect measure of the relationship between use of SMS reminders and clinic attendance (I(2)  = 90 percent; p < .01), so a summary effect estimate was not calculated. Stratification by study design showed that the heterogeneity was due to the observational studies. The summary effect from the RCTs was 1.48 (95% CI: 1.23-1.72) with no significant subgroup differences by clinic type (primary care clinics, hospital outpatient clinics), message timing (24, 48, and 72+ hours before the scheduled appointment), and target age group (pediatric, older). Short message service reminders in health care settings substantially increase the likelihood of attending clinic appointments. SMS reminders appear to be a simple and efficient option for health services to use to improve service delivery, as well as resulting in health benefits for the patients who receive the reminders. © Health Research and Educational Trust.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                PLoS Med
                PLoS Med
                PLoS
                plosmed
                PLoS Medicine
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )
                1549-1277
                1549-1676
                February 2013
                February 2013
                12 February 2013
                : 10
                : 2
                : e1001382
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Centre for Public Mental Health, Department of Psychology, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa
                [2 ]Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behaviour, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
                [3 ]Centre for Public Mental Health, Department of Psychology, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa
                [4 ]Chester M. Pierce, MD Division of Global Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
                [5 ]Center for Global Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
                Author notes

                MT is a member of the PLOS Medicine Editorial Board. AT receives salary support from NIH K23 MH-096620.

                Wrote the first draft of the manuscript: MT MR-B. Contributed to the writing of the manuscript: MT AT LS MR-B. ICMJE criteria for authorship read and met: MT AT LS MR-B. Agree with manuscript results and conclusions: MT AT LS MR-B.

                The Essay section contains opinion pieces on topics of broad interest to a general medical audience.

                Article
                PMEDICINE-D-12-02226
                10.1371/journal.pmed.1001382
                3570540
                23424286
                f36f888e-e834-47f2-affe-a6827be59c0f
                Copyright @ 2013

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                Page count
                Pages: 5
                Funding
                No specific funding was received for writing this article. MT acknowledges the support of the National Research Foundation (South Africa) and the Department for International Development (DfID-UK). ACT acknowledges salary support from U.S. National Institutes of Health K23 MH-096620.
                Categories
                Essay
                Medicine
                Global Health
                Public Health

                Medicine
                Medicine

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